THE YOUNG DIANA

MARIE CORELLI




 THE YOUNG DIANA

 AN EXPERIMENT OF THE FUTURE


 BY

 MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE EVERLASTING,” “INNOCENT,” “ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS,”
“BARABBAS,” ETC.


 TORONTO
 WILLIAM BRIGGS




_Copyright, Canada, 1918_,

By Marie Corelli




THE YOUNG DIANA




THE YOUNG DIANA

CHAPTER I


Once upon a time, in earlier and less congested days of literary
effort, an Author was accustomed to address the Public as “Gentle
Reader.” It was a civil phrase, involving a pretty piece of flattery.
It implied three things: first, that if the Reader were not “gentle,”
the Author’s courtesy might persuade him or her to become so--secondly,
that criticism, whether favourable or the reverse, might perhaps be
generously postponed till the reading of the book was finished,--and
thirdly, that the Author had no wish to irritate the Reader’s feelings,
but rather sought to prepare and smooth the way to a friendly
understanding. Now I am at one with my predecessors in all these
delicate points of understanding, and as I am about to relate what
every person of merely average intelligence is likely to regard as an
incredible narrative, I think it as well to begin politely, in the
old-fashioned “grand” manner of appeal, which is half apologetic, and
half conciliatory. “Gentle Reader,” therefore, I pray you to be friends
with me! Do not lose either patience or temper while following the
strange adventures of a very strange woman,--though in case you should
be disappointed in seeking for what you will not find, let me say at
once that my story is not of the Sex Problem type. No! My heroine is
not perverted from the paths of decency and order, or drawn to a bad
end; in fact, I cannot bring her to an end at all, as she is still
very much alive and doing uncommonly well for herself. Any end for
Diana May would seem not only incongruous, but manifestly impossible.

Life, as we all know, is a curious business. It is like a stage mask
with two faces,--the one comic, the other tragic. The way we look at
it depends on the way it looks at us. Some of us have seen it on both
sides, and are neither edified nor impressed.

Then, again--life is a series of “sensations.” We who live now are
always describing life. They who lived long ago did the same. It seems
that none of us have ever found, or can ever find, anything better
to occupy ourselves withal. All through the ages the millions of
human creatures who once were born and who are now dead, passed their
time on this planet in experiencing “sensations,” and relating their
experiences to one another, each telling his or her little “tale of
woe” in a different way. So anxious were they, and so anxious are we,
to explain the special and individual manner in which our mental and
physical vibrations respond to the particular circumstances in which
we find ourselves, that all systems of religion, government, science,
art and philosophy have been, and are, evolved simply and solely out
of the pains and pleasures of a mass of atoms who are “feeling” things
and trying to express their feelings to each other. These feelings
they designate by various lofty names, such as “faith,” “logic,”
“reason,” “opinion,” “wisdom,” and so forth; and upon them they build
temporary fabrics of Law and Order, vastly solid in appearance, yet
collapsible as a house of cards, and crumbling at a touch, while every
now and again there comes a sudden, unlooked-for interruption to their
discussions and plans--a kind of dark pause and suggestion of chaos,
such as a great war, a plague or other unwelcome “visitation of God,”
wherein “feelings” almost cease, or else people are too frightened
to talk about them. They are chilled into nervous silence and wait,
afflicted by fear and discouragement, till the cloud passes and the air
clears. Then the perpetual buzz of “feeling” begins again in the mixed
bass and treble of complaint and rejoicing,--a kind of monotonous noise
without harmony. External Nature has no part in it, for Man is the only
creature that ever tries to explain the phenomena of existence. It is
not in the least comprehensible why he alone should thus trouble and
perplex himself,--or why his incessant consideration and analysis of
his own emotions should be allowed to go on,--for, whatsoever education
may do for us, we shall never be educated out of the sense of our own
importance. Which is an odd fact, moving many thoughtful minds to
never-ending wonder.

My heroine, Diana May, wondered. She was always wondering. She spent
weeks, and months, and years, in a chronic state of wonder. She
wondered about herself and several other people, because she thought
both herself and those several other people so absurd. She found no
use for herself in the general scheme of things, and tried, with much
patient humility, to account for herself. But though she read books on
science, books on psychology, books on natural and spiritual law, and
studied complex problems of evolution and selection of species till her
poor dim eyes grew dimmer, and the “lines from nose to chin” became
ever longer and deeper, she could discover no way through the thick bog
of her difficulties. She was an awkward numeral in a sum; she did not
know why she came in or how she was to be got out.

Her father and mother were what are called “very well-to-do-people,”
with a pleasantly suburban reputation for respectability and regular
church attendance. Mr. James Polydore May,--this was his name in full,
as engraved on his visiting card--was a small man in stature, but in
self-complacency the biggest one alive. He had made a considerable
fortune in a certain manufacturing business which need not here be
specified, and he had speculated with it in a shrewd and careful
manner which was not without a touch of genius, the happy result being
that he had always gained and never lost. Now at the age of sixty, he
was free from all financial care, and could rattle gold and silver
in his trousers-pockets with a sense of pleasure in their clinking
sound,--they had the sweetness of church-bells which proclaim the
sure nearness of a prosperous town. He was not a bad-looking little
veteran,--he had, as he was fond of saying of himself, “a good chest
measurement,” and though his legs were short, they were not bandy.
Inclined to corpulence, the two lower buttons of his waistcoat were
generally left undone, that he might the more easily stretch himself
after a full meal. His physiognomy was not so much intelligent as
pugnacious--his bushy eyebrows, hair and moustache gave him at certain
moments the look of an irascible old terrier. He had keen small eyes,
coming close to the bridge of a rather pronounced Israelitish nose,
and to these characteristics was added a generally assertive air,--an
air which went before him like an advancing atmosphere, heralding his
approach as a “somebody”--that sort of atmosphere which invariably
accompanies nobodies. His admiration of the fair sex was open and
not always discreet, and from his youth up he had believed himself
capable of subjugating any and every woman. He had an agreeable “first
manner” of his own on introduction,--a manner which was absolutely
deceptive, giving no clue to the uglier side of his nature. His wife
could have told whole stories about this “first manner” of his, had
she not long ago given up the attempt to retain any hold on her own
individuality. She had been a woman of average intelligence when she
married him,--commonplace, certainly, but good-natured and willing to
make the best of everything; needless to say that the illusions of
youth vanished with the first years of wedded life (as they are apt to
do), and she had gradually sunk into a flabby condition of resigned
nonentity, seeing there was nothing else left for her. The dull, tame
tenor of her days had once been interrupted by the birth of her only
child Diana, who as long as she was small and young, and while she
was being educated under the usual system of governesses and schools,
was an object of delight, affection, amusement and interest, and who,
when she grew up and “came out” at eighteen as a graceful, pretty girl
of the freshest type of English beauty, gave her mother something to
love and to live for,--but alas!--Diana had proved the bitterest of
all her disappointments. The “coming-out” business, the balls, the
race-meetings and other matrimonial traps had been set in vain;--the
training, the music, the dancing, the “toilettes”--had failed to
attract,--and Diana had not married. She had fallen in love, as most
girls do before they know much about men,--and she had engaged herself
to an officer with “expectations” for whom, with a romantic devotion
as out of date as the poems of Chaucer, she had waited for seven long
years in a resigned condition of alarming constancy,--and then, when
his “expectations” were realised, he had promptly thrown her over for
a fairer and younger partner. By that time Diana was what is called
“getting on.” All this had tried the temper of Mrs. James Polydore
May considerably--and she took refuge from her many vexations in the
pleasures of the table and the consolations of sleep. The result of
this mode of procedure was that she became corpulent and unwieldy,--her
original self was swallowed up in a sort of featherbed of adipose
tissue, from which she peered out on the world with protruding,
lustreless eyes, the tip of her small nose seeming to protest feebly
against the injustice of being well-nigh walled from sight between
the massive flabby cheeks on either side of its never classic and
distinctly parsimonious proportions. With oversleep and over-eating
she had matured into a stupid and somewhat obstinate woman, with a
habit of saying unmeaningly nice or nasty things:--she would “gush”
affectionately to all and sundry,--to the maid who fastened her shoes
as ardently as to a friend of many years standing,--yet she would
mock her own guests behind their backs, or unkindly criticise the
physical and mental defects of the very man or woman she had flattered
obsequiously five minutes before. So that she was not exactly a “safe”
acquaintance,--you never knew where to have her. But,--as is often the
case with these placidly smiling, obese ladies,--everyone seemed to be
in a conspiracy to call her “sweet,” and “dear” and “kind,” whereas in
very truth she was one of the most selfish souls extant. Her charities
were always carefully considered and bestowed in quarters where she was
likely to get most credit for them,--her profusely expressed sympathy
for other people’s troubles exhausted itself in a few moments, and
she would straightway forget what form of loss or misfortune she had
just been commiserating,--while, despite her proverbial “dear” and
“sweet” attributes, she had a sulky temper which would hold her in
its grip for days, during which time she would neither speak nor be
spoken to. Her chief interest and attention were centred on eatables,
and she always made a point of going to breakfast in advance of her
husband, so that she might select for herself the most succulent
morsels out of the regulation dish of fried bacon, before he had a
chance to look in. Husband and wife were always arguing with each
other, and both were always wrong in each other’s opinion. Mrs. James
Polydore May considered her worser half as something of a wayward and
peevish child, and he in turn looked upon her as a useful domestic
female--“perfectly simple and natural,” he was wont to say, a statement
which, if true, would have been vastly convenient to him as he could
then have deceived her more easily. But “deeper than ever plummet
sounded” was the “simplicity” wherewith Mrs. James Polydore May was
endowed, and the “natural” way in which she managed to secure her own
comfort, convenience and ease while assuming to be the most guileless
and unselfish of women; indeed there were times when she was fairly
astonished at herself for having “arranged things so cleverly,” as she
expressed it. Whenever a woman of her type admits to having “arranged
things cleverly” you may be sure that the most astute lawyer alive
could never surpass her in the height or the depth of duplicity.

Such, briefly outlined, were the characteristics of the couple who, in
an absent-minded moment, had taken upon themselves the responsibility
of bringing a woman into the world for whom apparently the world
had no use. Woman, considered in the rough abstract, is only the
pack-mule of man,--his goods, his chattels, created specially to be
the “vessel” of his passion and humour,--and without his favour and
support she is by universal consent set down as a lonely and wandering
mistake. Such is the Law and the Prophets. Under these circumstances,
which have recently shown signs of yielding to pressure, Diana, the
rapidly ageing spinster daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Polydore May,
was in pitiable plight. No man wanted her, not even to serve him as a
pack-mule. No man sought to add her person to his goods and chattels,
and at the time this true story opens, she was not fair or fascinating
or young enough to serve him as a toy for his delight, a plaything
of his pleasure. Life had been very monotonous for her since she had
passed the turning-point of thirty years,--“nice” people, who always
say nasty things, remarked “how _passée_ she was getting,”--thereby
helping the ageing process considerably. She, meanwhile, bore her lot
with exemplary cheerfulness,--she neither grizzled nor complained, nor
showed herself envious of youth or youthful loveliness. A comforting
idea of “duty” took possession of her mind, and she devoted herself to
the tenderest care of her fat mother and irritable father, waiting upon
them like a slave, and saying her prayers for them night and morning as
simply as a child, without the faintest suspicion that they were past
praying for. The years went on, and she took pains to educate herself
in all that might be useful,--she read much and thought more,--she
mastered two or three languages, and spoke them with ease and fluency,
and she was an admirable musician. She had an abundance of pretty
light-brown hair, and all her movements were graceful, but alas!--the
unmistakable look of growing old was stamped upon her once mobile
features,--she had become angular and flat-chested, and the unbecoming
straight line from waist to knee, which gave her figure a kind of
pitiful masculinity, was developing with hard and bony relentlessness.
One charm she had, which she herself recognised and took care to
cultivate--“a low, sweet voice, an excellent thing in woman.” If one
chanced to hear her speaking in an adjoining room, the effect was
remarkable,--one felt that some exquisite creature of immortal youth
and tenderness was expressing a heavenly thought in music.

Mr. James Polydore May, as I have already ventured to suggest, was
nothing if not respectable. He was a J.P. This,--in English suburban
places at least,--is the hall-mark of an unimpeachable rectitude.
Another sign of his good standing and general uprightness was, that at
stated seasons he always went for a change of air. We all know that
the person who remains in one place the whole year round is beyond
the pale and cannot be received in the best society. Mr. May had a
handsome house and grounds in the close vicinity of Richmond, within
easy distance of town, but when the London “season” ended, he and Mrs.
May invariably discovered their home to be “stuffy,” and sighed for
more expansive breathing and purer oxygen than Richmond could supply.
They had frequently taken a shooting or fishing in Scotland, but that
was in the days when there were still matrimonial hopes for Diana, and
when marriageable men could be invited, not only to handle rod and gun,
but to inspect their “one ewe-lamb,” which they were over-anxious to
sell to the highest bidder. These happy dreams were at an end. It was
no longer worth while to lay in extensive supplies of whisky and cigars
by way of impetus to timid or hesitating Benedicts, when they came back
from a “day on the moors,” tired, sleepy and stupid enough to drift
into proposals of marriage almost unconsciously. Mr. May seldom invited
young men to stay with him now, for the very reason that he could not
get them; they found him a “bore,”--his wife dull, and his daughter an
“old maid,”--a term of depreciation still freely used by the golden
youth of the day, despite the modern and more civil term of “lady
bachelor.” So he drew in the horns of his past ambition, and consoled
himself with the society of two or three portly men of his own age and
habits,--men who played golf and billiards, and who, if they could
do nothing else, smoked continuously. And for the necessary “change
of air,” the seaside offered itself as a means of health without too
excessive an expenditure, and instead of “chasing the wild deer
and following the roe,” a simple hammock chair on the sandy beach,
and a golf course within easy walking distance provided sufficient
relaxation. Not that Mr. May was in any sense parsimonious; he did not
take a cottage by the sea, or cheap lodgings,--on the contrary, he was
always prepared to “do the thing handsomely,” and to select what the
house-agents call an “ideal” residence.

At the particular time I am writing of, he had just settled down for
the summer in a very special “ideal” on the coast of Devon. It was a
house which had formerly belonged to an artist, but the artist had
recently died, and his handsome and not inconsolable widow stated that
she found it dull. She was glad to let it for two or three months, in
order to “get away” with that restless alacrity which distinguishes so
many people who find anything better than their own homes, and Mr. and
Mrs. Polydore May, though, as they said, it certainly was “a little
quiet after London,” were glad to have it, at quite a moderate rental
for the charming place it really was. The gardens were exquisitely
laid out and carefully kept; the smooth velvety lawns ran down almost
to the sea, where a little white gate opened out from the green of the
grass to the gold of the sand,--the rooms were tastefully furnished,
and Diana, when she first saw the place, going some days in advance
of her father and mother, as was her wont, in order to make things
ready and comfortable for them, thought how happy she could be if only
such a house and garden were hers to enjoy, independently of others.
For a week before her respected and respectable parents came, in the
intervals of unpacking, and arranging matters so that the domestic
“staff” could assume their ordinary duties with smoothness and
regularity, she wandered about alone, exploring the beauties of her
surroundings, her thin, flat figure striking a curious note of sadness
and solitude, as she sometimes stood in the garden among a wealth of
flowers, looking out to the tender dove-grey line of the horizon across
the sea. The servants peeping at her from kitchen and pantry windows,
made their own comments.

“Poor dear!” said the cook, thoughtfully--“she do wear thin!”

“Ah, it’s a sad look-out for ’er!” sighed the upper housemaid, who was
engaged to a pork-butcher with an alarmingly red face, whom one would
have thought any self-respecting young woman would have died rather
than wedded. “To be all alone in the world like that, unpertected, as
she will be when her pa and ma have gone!”

“Well, they won’t go in a hurry!” put in the butler, who was an
observing man--“Leastways, Mr. May won’t; he’ll ’old on to life like
a cat to a mouse--_he_ will! He’s _that_ hearty!--why, he thinks
he’s about thirty instead of sixty. The missis, now,--if she goes on
eating as she do,--she’ll drop off sudden like a burstin’ bean,--but
_he_!--Ah! I shouldn’t wonder if he outlasted us all!”

“Lor, Mr. Jonson!” exclaimed the upper housemaid--“How you do
talk!--and you such a young man too!”

Jonson smiled, inwardly flattered. He was well over forty, but like his
master wished to be considered a kind of youth, fit for dancing, tennis
and other such gamesome occupations.

“Miss Diana,” he now continued, with a judicial air--“has lost her
chances. It’s a pity!--for no one won’t marry her now. There’s too many
young gels about,--no man wants the old ’uns. She’ll have to take up a
‘mission’ or something to get noticed at all.”

Here a quiet-looking woman named Grace Laurie interposed. She was the
ladies’ maid, and she was held in great respect, for she was engaged to
marry (at some uncertain and distant date) an Australian farmer with
considerable means.

“Miss Diana is very clever--” she said--“She could do almost anything
she cared to. She’s got a great deal more in her than people think.
And”--here Grace hesitated--“she’s prettily made, too, though she’s
over thin,--when she comes from her bath with all her hair hanging
down, she looks sweet!” A gurgle of half hesitating, half incredulous
laughter greeted this remark.

“Well, it’s few ladies as looks ‘sweet’ coming from the bath!” declared
the butler with emphasis. “I’ve had many a peep at the missis----”

Here the laughter broke out loudly, with little cries of: “Oh!
Oh!”--and the kitchen chatter ended.

It had come to the last day of Diana’s free and uncontrolled enjoyment
of the charming seaside Eden which her parents had selected as a summer
retreat,--and regretfully realising this, she strolled lingeringly
about the garden, inhaling the sweet odours of roses and mignonette
with the salty breath of the sea. The next morning Mr. and Mrs.
Polydore May would arrive in time for luncheon, and once more the old
domestic jog-trot would commence,--the same routine as that which
prevailed at Richmond, with no other change save such as was conveyed
in the differing scene and surroundings. Breakfast punctually at
nine,--luncheon at one,--tea at four-thirty,--dinner at a quarter to
eight. Dinner at a quarter to eight was one of Diana’s bugbears--why
not have it at eight o’clock, she thought? The “quarter to” was an
irritating juggling with time for which there was no necessity. But
she had protested in vain; dinner at quarter to eight was one of her
mother’s many domestic “fads.” Between the several meals enumerated
there would be nothing doing,--nothing, that is to say, of any
consequence or use to anybody. Diana knew the whole weary, stupid
round,--Mr. May would pass the morning reading the papers either in
the garden or on the sandy shore,--Mrs. May would give a few muddled
and contradictory orders to the servants, who never obeyed them
literally, but only as far as they could be conveniently carried out,
and then would retire to write letters to friends or acquaintances;
in the afternoon Mr. May would devote himself to golf, while his wife
slept till tea-time,--then she would take a stroll in the garden, and
perhaps--only perhaps--talk over a few household affairs with her
daughter. Then came the “quarter to eight” dinner with desultory and
somewhat wrangling conversation, after which Mrs. May slept again, and
Mr. May played billiards, if he could find anyone to play with him,--if
not, he practised “tricky” things alone with the cue. Neither of them
ever thought that this sort of life was not conducive to cheerfulness
so far as their daughter Diana was concerned,--indeed they never
considered her at all. When she was young--ah yes, of course!--it was
necessary to find such entertainment and society for her as might
“show her off,”--but now, when she was no longer marriageable in the
conventionally accepted sense of marriage, she was left to bear the
brunt of fate as best she might, and learn to be contented with the
plain feminine duty of keeping house for her parents. It must be
stated that she did this “keeping house” business to perfection,--she
controlled expenses without a taint of meanness, managed the servants,
and made the whole commonplace affair of ordinary living run smoothly.
But whatever she did, she never had a word of praise from either her
father or mother,--they took her careful service as their right, and
never seemed to realise that most of their comforts and conveniences
were the result of her forethought and good sense. Certainly they did
not trouble themselves as to whether she was happy or the reverse.

She thought of this,--just a little, but not morosely--on the last
evening she was to spend alone at “Rose Lea” as the “ideal” summer
residence was called,--probably on account of its facing west, and
gathering on its walls and windows all the brilliant flush of the
sunset. She was somewhat weary,--she had been occupied for hours
in arranging her mother’s bedroom and seeing that all the numerous
luxuries needed by that placid mass of superfluous flesh were in their
place and order, and now that she had finished everything she had
to do, she was glad to have the remainder of her time to herself in
the garden, thinking, and--as usual--wondering. Her wonder was just
simply this:--How long would she have to go on in the same clockwork
mechanism of life as that which now seemed to be her destiny? She had
made certain variations in the slow music of her days by study,--yes,
that was true!--but then no one made use of her studies,--no one
knew the extent of her attainments, and even in her music she had no
encouragement,--no one ever asked her to play. All her efforts seemed
so much wasted output of energy. She had certain private joys of her
own,--a great love of Nature, which like an open door in Heaven allowed
her to enter familiarly into some of the marvels and benedictions of
creative intelligence; she loved books, and could read them in French
and Italian, as well as in her native English; and she had taken to the
study of Russian with some success. Greek and Latin she had learned
sufficiently well to understand the great authors of the elder world in
their own script,--but all these intellectual diversions were organised
and followed on her own initiative, and as she sometimes said to
herself a trifle bitterly:

“Nobody knows I can do anything but check the tradesmen’s books and
order the dinner.”

This was a fact,--nobody knew. Ordinary people considered her
unattractive; what they saw was a scraggy woman of medium height with
a worn face visibly beginning to wrinkle under a profusion of brown
hair,--a woman who “had been” pretty when younger, but who now had
a rather restrained and nervous manner, and who was seldom inclined
to speak,--yet, who, when spoken to, answered always gently, in a
sweet voice with a wonderfully musical accentuation. No one thought
for a moment that she might possibly be something of a scholar,--and
certainly no one imagined that above all things she was a great student
of all matters pertaining to science. Every book she could hear of
on scientific subjects, whether treating of wireless telegraphy,
light-rays, radium, or other marvellous discoveries of the age, she
made it her special business to secure and to study patiently and
comprehendingly, the result being that her mind was richly stored with
material for thought on far higher planes than the majority of reading
folk ever attempt to reach. But she never spoke of the things in which
she was so deeply interested, and as she was reserved and almost
awkwardly shy in company, the occasional callers on her mother scarcely
noticed her, except casually and with a careless civility which meant
nothing. She was seen to knit and to do Jacobean tapestry rather well,
and people spoke to her of these accomplishments as being what they
thought she was most likely to understand,--but they looked askance
at her dress, which was always a little tasteless and unbecoming, and
opined that “poor dear Mrs. May must be dreadfully disappointed in her
daughter!”

It never occurred to these easy-tongued folk that Diana was dreadfully
disappointed in herself. This was the trouble of it. She asked the
question daily and could find no answer. And yet,--she was useful to
her parents surely? Yes,--but in her own heart she knew they would
have been just as satisfied with a paid “companion housekeeper.” They
did not really “love” her, now that she had turned out such a failure.
Alas, poor Diana! Her hunger for “love” was her misfortune; it was the
one thing in all the world she craved. It had been this desire of love
that had charmed her impulsive soul when in the heyday of her youth
and prettiness, she had engaged herself to the man for whom she had
waited seven years, only to be heartlessly thrown over at last. She
had returned all his letters in exchange for her own at the end of the
affair,--all, save two,--and these two she read every night before she
said her prayers to keep them well fixed in her memory. One of them
contained the following passage:

 “How I love you, my own sweet little Diana! You are to me the most
 adorable girl in the world,--and if ever I do an unkind thing to you
 or wrong you in any way may God punish me for a treacherous brute! My
 one desire in life is to make you happy.”

The other letter, written some years later, was rather differently
expressed.

 “I am quite sure you will understand that time has naturally worked
 changes, in you as well as in myself, and I am obliged to confess
 that the feelings I once had for you no longer exist. But you are a
 sensible woman, and you are old enough now to realise that we are
 better apart.”

“You are old enough now,” was the phrase that jarred upon Diana’s
inward sense, like the ugly sound of a clanking chain in a convict’s
cell. “You are old enough now.” Well, it was true!--she was “old
enough,”--but she had taken this “oldness” upon her while faithfully
waiting for her lover. And he had been the first to punish her for
her constancy! It was very strange. Indeed, it was one of those many
things that had brought her to her chronic state of wonderment. The
great writers,--more notably great poets, themselves the most fickle of
men,--eulogised fidelity in love as a heavenly virtue. Why then, when
she had practised it, had she been so sorely rewarded? Yet, since the
rupture of her engagement, and the long and bitter pain she had endured
over this breaking up of all she had held most dear, her many studies
and her careful reading had gradually calmed and strengthened her
nature, and she was able to admit to herself that there were possibly
worse things than the loss of a heartless lover who might have proved
a still more heartless husband. She felt no resentment towards him,
and his memory now scarcely moved her to a thrill of sorrow or regret.
She only asked herself why it had all happened? Of course there was no
answer to such a query,--there never is. And she was “old enough”--yes,
quite “old enough” to put away all romance and sentimentality. Yet, as
she walked slowly in the garden among the roses, and watched the sea
sparkling in the warm after-glow of what had been an exceptionally fine
sun setting, the old foolish craving stirred in her heart again. The
scent of the flowers, the delicate breathings of the summer air, the
flash of the sea-gulls’ white wings skimming over the glittering sand
pools,--all these expressions of natural beauty saddened while they
entranced her soul. She longed to be one with them, sharing their life,
and imparting to others something of their joy.

“They never grow old!” she said, half aloud. “Or if they do, it is not
perceived. They seem always the same--always beautiful and vital.”

Here she paused. A standard rose tree weighted with splendid blossom
showed among its flowers one that had been cramped and spoiled by the
over-profusion and close pressure of its companions,--it was decaying
amid the eager crowd of bursting buds that looked almost humanly
anxious to be relieved of its presence. With soft, deft fingers Diana
broke it away from the stem and let it drop to earth.

“That is me!” she said. “And that’s what ought to become of me! Nothing
withered or ugly ought to live in such a lovely world. I am a blot on
beauty.”

She looked out to sea again. The after-glow had almost faded; only one
broad line of dull gold showed the parting trail of the sun.

“No--there’s no hope!” she murmured, with an expressive gesture of her
hands. “I must plod on day after day in the same old rut of things,
doing my duty, which is perhaps all I ought to ask to do,--trying to
make my mother comfortable and to keep my father in decent humour,--and
then--then--when they go, I shall be alone in the world. No one will
care what becomes of me,--even as it is now no one cares whether I live
or die!”

This is the discordant note in many a life’s music,--“no one cares.”
When “no one cares” for us, we do not care about ourselves or about
anybody else. And in “not caring” we stumble blindly and unconsciously
on our only chance of safety and happiness. A heartless truth!--but
a truth all the same. For when we have become utterly indifferent to
Destiny, Destiny like a spoiled child does all she can to attract our
notice, and manifests a sudden interest in us of which we had never
dreamed. And the less we care, the more she clings!




CHAPTER II


Diana was “old enough,” as her recalcitrant lover had informed
her, to value the blessing of a good night’s rest. She had a clear
conscience,--she was, indeed, that _rara avis_, in these days, a
perfectly innocent-minded woman, and she slept as calmly and peacefully
as a child. When she woke to the light of a radiant morning, with the
sunshine making diamonds of the sea, she felt almost young again as she
tripped to and fro, putting the final touches of taste to the pretty
drawing-room, and giving to every nook and corner that indefinable
air of pleasant occupation which can only be bestowed by the hand of
a dainty, beauty-loving woman. At the appointed hour, the automobile
was sent to the station to meet Mr. and Mrs. James Polydore May, and
punctual to time the worthy couple arrived, both husband and wife
slightly out of humour with the heat of the fine summer’s day and the
fatigue of the journey from London.

“Well, Diana!” sighed her mother, turning a fat, buff-coloured cheek to
be kissed, “is the house really decent and comfortable?”

“It’s lovely!” declared Diana, cheerfully--“I’m sure you’ll be happy
here, Mother! The garden is perfectly delightful!”

“Your mother spoke of the house, not the garden,” interposed Mr. May,
judicially. “You really must be accurate, Diana! Yes--er--yes!--that
will do!”--this, as Diana somewhat shrinkingly embraced him. “Your
mother is always suspicious--and rightly so--of damp in rented country
houses, but I think we made ourselves certain that there was nothing
of that kind before we decided to take it. And no poultry clucking?--no
noises of a farmyard close by? No? That’s a comfort! Yes--er--it seems
fairly suitable. Is luncheon ready?”

Diana replied that it was, and the family of three were soon seated at
table in the dining-room, discussing lobster mayonnaise. As Mrs. May
bent her capacious bosom over her plate, her round eyes goggling with
sheer greed, and Mr. May ate rapidly as was his wont, casting sharp
glances about him to see if he could find fault with anything, Diana’s
heart sank more and more. It was just the same sort of luncheon as at
home in Richmond, tainted by the same sordid atmosphere of commonplace.
Her parents showed no spark of pleasurable animation or interest in the
change of scene or the loveliness of the garden and sea as glimpsed
through the open French windows,--everything had narrowed into the
savoury but compressed limit of lobster mayonnaise.

“Too much mustard in this, as usual,” said Mr. May, scraping his plate
noisily.

“Not at all,” retorted his wife, with placid obstinacy. “If there _is_
anything Marsh knows _how_ to make with absolute perfection, it _is_
mayonnaise.”

Marsh was the cook, and the cause of many a matrimonial wrangle.

“Oh, of course, Marsh is faultless!” sneered Mr. May. “This house has
been taken solely that Marsh shall have a change of air and extra
perquisites!”

Mrs. May’s eyes goggled a little more prominently, and protecting
her voluminous bust with a dinner-napkin, she took a fresh supply of
mayonnaise. Diana, who was a small eater and who rather grudged the
time her parents spent over their meals, took no part in this sort of
“sparring,” which always went on between the progenitors of her being.
She was thankful when luncheon was over and she could escape to her
own room. There she found the maid, Grace Laurie, with some letters
which had just arrived.

“These are for you, miss,” said Grace. “I brought them up out of the
hall, as I thought you’d like to be quiet for a bit.”

Diana smiled, gratefully.

“Thank you, Grace. Mother is coming upstairs directly to lie down--will
you see she has all she wants?”

“Yes, miss.” Then, after a pause, “It’s you that should lie down and
get a rest, Miss Diana,--you’ve been doing ever such a lot all these
days. You should just take it easy now.”

Diana smiled again. There was something of kindly compassion in
the “take it easy” suggestion--but she nodded assentingly and the
well-meaning maid left her.

There was a long mirror against the wall, and Diana suddenly saw her
own reflection in it. A hot flush of annoyance reddened her face,--what
a scarecrow she looked to herself! So angular and bony! Her plain navy
linen frock hung as straight as a man’s trousers; no gracious curves
of body gave prettiness to its uncompromising folds,--and as for her
poor worn countenance, she could have thrown things at it for its
doleful pointed chin and sharp nose! She looked steadfastly into her
own eyes,--they were curious in colour, and rather pretty with their
melting hues of blue and grey,--but, oh!--those crows’-feet at the
corners!--oh, the wrinkling of the eyelids!--oh, the tiredness, and
dimness and ache!

Turning abruptly away, she glanced at the small time-piece on her
dressing-table. It was three o’clock. Then she took off her navy
linen gown,--one of the “serviceable,” ugly sort of things her
father was never tired of recommending for her wear,--and slipped on
a plain little white wrapper which she had made for herself out of a
cheap length of nun’s veiling. She loosened her hair and brushed it
out,--it fell to her waist in pretty rippling waves, and it was full
of golden “glints,” so much so that spiteful persons of her own sex
had even said--“at her age it can’t be natural; it _must_ be dyed!”
Nevertheless, its curling tendency and its brightness were all its own,
but Diana took no heed of its beauty, and she would have been more
than incredulous had anyone told her that in this array, or, rather,
_dis_array, she had the appearance of a time-worn picture of some
delicate saint in a French mediæval “Book of Hours.” But such was her
aspect. And with the worn saint look upon her, she drew a reclining
chair to the window and lay down, stretching herself restfully at full
length, and gazing out to sea, her unopened letters on her lap. How
beautiful was that seemingly infinite line of shining water, melting
into shining sky!--how far removed from the little troubles and terrors
of the world of mankind!

“I wonder----!” she murmured. The old story again!--she was always
wondering! Then, with eyes growing almost youthful in their intense
longing for comprehension, she became absorbed in one of those vague
reveries, which, like the things of eternity, have no beginning and no
end. She “wondered”--yes!--she wondered why, for example, Nature was so
grand and reasonable, and Man so mean and petty, when surely he could,
if he chose, be master of his own fate,--master of all the miracles of
air, fire and water, and supreme sovereign of his own soul! A passage
in a book she had lately been reading recurred to her memory.

“If any man once mastered the secret of governing the chemical atoms of
which he is composed, he would discover the fruit of the Tree of Life
of which, as his Creator said, he would ‘take, eat and live for ever!’”

She sighed,--a sigh of weariness and momentary depression, then began
turning over her letters and glancing indifferently at the handwriting
on each envelope, till one, addressed in a remarkably clear, bold
caligraphy, made her smile in evidently pleasurable anticipation.

“From Sophy Lansing,” she said. “Dear little Sophy! She’s always
amusing, with her Suffragette enthusiasms, and her vivacious
independent ways! And she’s one of those very few clever women who
manage to keep womanly and charming in spite of their cleverness. Oh,
what a _fat_ letter!”

She opened it and read the dashing scrawl, still smiling.

 “Dearest Di,

 “I suppose you are now settling down ‘by the sad sea waves’ with Pa
 and Ma! Oh, you poor thing! I can see you hard at it like a donkey at
 a well, trotting ‘in the common round, the daily task’ of keeping Pa
 as tolerable in temper as such an old curmudgeon can be, and Ma as
 reposeful under her burden of superfluous flesh as is at all possible.
 What a life for you, patient Grizel! Why don’t you throw it up? You
 are really clever, and you could do so much. This is Woman’s Day, and
 you are a woman of exceptional ability. You know I’ve asked you over
 and over again to retire from the whole domestic ‘show,’ and leave
 those most uninteresting and selfish old parents of yours to their own
 devices, with a paid housekeeper to look after their food, which is
 all they really care about. Come and live with me in London. We should
 be quite happy together, for I’m good-natured and sensible, and so are
 you, and we’re neither of us contending for a man, so we shouldn’t
 quarrel. And you’d wake up, Diana!--you’d wake to find that there
 are many more precious things in life than Pa and Ma! I could even
 find you a few men to entertain you, though most of them become bores
 after about an hour--especially the ones that think themselves vastly
 amusing. Like your Pa, you know!--who, when he tells a very ancient
 ‘good story,’ thinks that God Himself ought to give up everything else
 to listen to him! No, don’t be shocked! I’m not really irreverent--but
 you know it’s true. Woe betide the hapless wight, male or female, who
 dares utter a word while Pa Polydore is on the story trail! How I’ve
 longed to throw things at him! and have only refrained for your sake!
 Well! God a’ mercy on us, as Shakespeare’s Ophelia says, and defend us
 from the anecdotal men!

 “You’ll perhaps be interested to hear that a proposal of marriage
 was made to me last night. The bold adventurer is rather like your
 Pa,--well ‘on’ in years, rich, with a prosperous ‘tum’--and a general
 aspect of assertive affluence. I said ‘No,’ of course, and he asked me
 if I knew what I was doing? Exactly as if he thought I might be drunk,
 or dreaming! I replied that I was quite aware of myself, of him, and
 the general locality. ‘And yet you say No?’ he almost whispered, in a
 kind of stupefied amazement. I repeated ‘No’--and ‘No,’--and clinched
 the matter by the additional remark that he was the last sort of man
 I would ever wish to marry. Then he smiled feebly, and said ‘Poor
 child!--you have been sadly led astray! These new ideas----’ I cut
 him short by ringing the bell and ordering tea, and fortunately just
 at the moment in came Jane Prowser--_you_ know her!--the tall, bony
 woman who goes in for ‘Eugenics,’ and she did the scarecrow business
 quite effectively. As soon as she began to talk in her high, rasping
 voice he went! Then I had tea alone with the Prowser--rather a trying
 meal, as she would, she _would_ describe in detail all the deformities
 and miseries of a child ‘wot ’adn’t no business to be born,’ as my
 housemaid once remarked of a certain domestic upset. However, I got
 rid of her after she had eaten all the cress and tomato sandwiches,
 and then I started to read a batch of letters from abroad. I’m so
 thankful for my foreign correspondents!--they write and spell so well,
 and always have something interesting to say. One of my great friends
 in Paris, Blanche de Rouailles, sent me a most curious advertisement,
 which she tells me is appearing in all the French papers--I enclose
 it for you, as you are so ‘scientific’ and it may interest you. It is
 rather curiously worded and sounds ‘uncanny!’ But it occupies nearly
 half a column in all the principal Paris papers and is repeated in
 five different languages,--French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and
 English. I suppose it’s a snare or a ‘do’ of some sort. The world
 is full of scoundrels, even in science! Now remember what I tell
 you! Come to me at once if Pa and Ma kick over the traces and allow
 their ingrained selfishness to break out of bounds. There’s plenty of
 room for you in my cosy little flat and we can have a real good time
 together. Don’t bother about money,--with your talent and knowledge
 of languages you can soon earn some, and I’ll put you in the way of
 it. You really must do something for your own advantage,--surely you
 don’t mean to waste your whole life in soothing Pa and massaging Ma?
 It may be dutiful but it must be dull! I don’t think all the massaging
 in the world will ever reduce Ma to normal proportions, and certainly
 nothing can ever cure Pa of his detestable humours which are always
 lurking in ambush below his surface ‘manner,’ ready to jump out like
 little black devils on the smallest provocation. We can never be
 really grateful enough, dear Di, for our single blessedness! Imagine
 what life would have been for us with husbands like Pa! Absolute
 misery!--for you and I could never have taken refuge in food and fat
 like Ma! We would have died sooner than concentrate our souls on peas
 and asparagus!--we would have gone to the stake like martyrs rather
 than have allowed our bosoms to swell with the interior joys of roast
 pork and stuffing! Oh yes!--there is much to be thankful for in our
 spinsterhood,--we can go to our little beds in peace, knowing that
 no pig-like snoring from the ‘superior’ brute will disturb the holy
 hours of the night!--and if we _are_ clever enough to make a little
 money, we can spend it as we like, without being cross-examined as to
 why it is that the dress we wore four years ago is worn out, and why
 we must have another! I could run on for pages and pages concerning
 the blessings and privileges of unmarried women, but I’ll restrain
 my enthusiasm till we meet. Let that meeting be soon!--and remember
 that I am always at your service as a true friend and that I’ll do
 anything in the world to help you out of your domestic harness. For
 the old people who ‘drive’ you can’t and won’t see what a patient,
 kind, helpful clever daughter they’ve got, and they don’t deserve to
 keep you. Let them spend their spare cash on a housekeeper, who is
 sure to cheat them (and a good job too!) and take your freedom. Get
 away!--never mind how, or where, or when,--but don’t spend all your
 life in drudging. You’ve done enough of it--get away! This is the best
 of good advice from your loving friend,

      “Sophy Lansing.”


A slight shadow of meditative gravity clouded Diana’s face as she
finished reading this letter. She was troubled by her own thoughts;
Sophy’s lively strictures on her parents were undoubtedly correct and
deserved,--and yet--“father and mother” were “father and mother” after
all! It is curious how these two words still keep their sentimental
significance, despite “state” education! “Mother” in the lower classes
is often a drab, and in the higher a frivolous wastrel; “father” in the
slums may beat his children black and blue, and in Mayfair neglect them
to the point of utmost indifference,--but “mother and father,” totally
undeserving as they often are, still come in for a share of their
offspring’s vague consideration and lingering respect. “Education” of
the wrong sort, however, is doing its best to deprive them of this
regard, and it appears likely that the younger generation will soon be
so highly instructed as to be able to ignore “mother and father” as
easily as full-fledged cygnets ignore the parent birds who drive them
away from their nesting haunts. But Diana was “old-fashioned”; she had
an affectionate nature, and she took pathetic pains to persuade herself
that “Pa” and “Ma” meant to be kind, and must in their hearts love her,
their only child. This was pure fallacy, but it was the only little
bit of hope and trust left to her in a hard world, and she was loth
to let it go. The smallest expression of tenderness from that ruffled
old human terrier, her father, would have brought her to his feet, an
even more willing slave to his moods than she already was,--a loving
embrace from her mother would have moved her almost to tears of joy
and gratitude, and would have doubly strengthened her unreasoning and
unselfish devotion to the “bogey” of her duty. But she never received
any such sign of affection or encouragement from year’s end to year’s
end,--and it was like a strange dream to her now to recall that when
she had been young, in the time of her “teens,” her father had called
her his “beautiful girl,” and her mother had chosen pretty frocks for
her “darling child!” Youth and the prospects of marriage had made this
difference in the temperature of parental tenderness. Now that she was
at that fatal stop-gap called “middle-age” and a hopeless spinster,
the pretty frocks and the “beautiful-girl-darling-child” period had
vanished with her matrimonial chances. There was no help for it.

At this point in her thoughts she gave a little half-unconscious
sigh. Mechanically she folded up Sophy Lansing’s letter, and as she
did so, noticed that a slip of printed paper had fallen out of it
and lay on the floor. She turned herself on her reclining chair and
stooped for it,--then as she picked it up realised that it must be
the advertisement in the five different languages which her friend
had mentioned. Glancing carelessly over it at first, but afterwards
more attentively, her interest was aroused by its unusual wording, and
then as she read it over and over again she found in it a singular
attraction. It ran as follows:

 “To ANY WOMAN who is alone in the world WITHOUT CLAIMS on HER TIME or
 HER AFFECTIONS.

 “A SCIENTIST, engaged in very IMPORTANT and DIFFICULT WORK, requires
 the ASSISTANCE and CO-OPERATION of a Courageous and Determined Woman
 of mature years. She must have a fair knowledge of modern science, and
 must not shrink from dangerous experiments or be afraid to take risks
 in the pursuit of discoveries which may be beneficial to the human
 race. Every personal care, consideration and courtesy will be shown
 towards her, and she will be paid a handsome sum for her services
 and be provided with full board and lodging in an elegant suite of
 apartments placed freely at her disposal. She must be prepared to
 devote herself for one or two years entirely to the study of very
 intricate problems in chemistry, concerning which she will be expected
 to maintain the strictest confidence. She must be well educated,
 especially in languages and literature, and she must have no ties of
 any kind or business which can interrupt or distract her attention
 from the serious course of training which it will be necessary for
 her to pursue. This Advertisement cannot be answered by letter. Each
 applicant must present herself personally and alone between the hours
 of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays only to

      “DR. FÉODOR DIMITRIUS,
        “Château Fragonard,
          “Geneva.”

The more Diana studied this singular announcement, the more remarkable
and fascinating did it seem. The very hours named as the only suitable
ones for interviewing applicants, between six and eight in the morning,
were unusual enough, and the whole wording of the advertisement implied
something mysterious and out of the common.

“Though I dare say it is, as Sophy suggests, only a snare of some
sort,” she thought. “And yet to me it sounds genuine. But I don’t
think this Dr. Féodor Dimitrius will get the kind of woman he wants
easily. A handsome salary with board and lodging are tempting enough,
but few women would be inclined to ‘take risks’ in the inventions
and discoveries of modern science. Some of them are altogether too
terrible!”

She read the advertisement carefully through again, then rose and
locked it away in her desk with Sophy Lansing’s letter. She glanced
through the rest of her correspondence, which was not exciting,--one
note asking for the character of a servant, another for the pattern
of a blouse, and a third enclosing a recipe for a special sort of jam,
“with love to your sweet kind mother!”

She put them all by, and stretching her arms languidly above her head,
caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror. This time it was
more satisfactory. Her hair, hanging down to her waist, was full of a
brightness, made brighter just now by the sunlight streaming through
the window, and her nun’s veiling “rest gown” had a picturesque grace
in its white fall and flow which softened the tired look of her face
and eyes into something like actual prettiness. The fair ghost of her
lost youth peeped at her for a moment, awakening a smarting sense of
regretful tears. A light tap at the door fortunately turned the current
of her thoughts, and the maid Grace Laurie entered, bearing a dainty
little tray with a cup of tea invitingly set upon it.

“I’ve just taken some tea to Mrs. May in her bedroom,” she said. “And I
thought you’d perhaps like a cup.”

“You’re a treasure, Grace!”--and Diana sat down to the proffered
refreshment. “What shall we all do when you go away to be married?”

Grace laughed and tossed her head.

“Well, there’s time enough for that, miss!” she replied. “_He_ ain’t
in no hurry, nor am I! You see when you’re married you’re just done
for,--there’s no more fun. It’s drudge, wash, cook and sew for the rest
of your days, and no way of getting out of it.”

Diana, sipping her tea, looked at her, smiling.

“If that’s the way you think, you shouldn’t marry,” she said.

“Oh yes, I should!” and Grace laughed again. “A woman like me wants a
home and a man to work for her. I don’t care to be in service all my
days,--I may as well wash and sew for a man of my own as for anybody
else.”

“But you love him, don’t you?” asked Diana.

“Well, he isn’t much to love!” declared Grace, with twinkling eyes.
“His looks wouldn’t upset anyone’s peace! I’ve never thought of love at
all--all I want is to be warm and comfortable in a decent house with
plenty to eat,--and a good husband is a man who can do that, and keep
it going. As for loving, that’s all stuff and nonsense!--as I always
say you should never care more for a man with your ’ed than you can
kick off with your ’eels.”

This profound utterance had the effect of moving Diana to the most
delightful mirth. She laughed and laughed again,--and her laughter was
so sweet and fresh that it was like a little chime of bells. Her voice,
as already hinted, was her great charm, and whether she laughed or
spoke her accents broke the air into little bars of music.

“Oh, Grace, Grace!” she said, at last. “You are too funny for words!
I must learn that wise saying of yours by heart! What is it? ‘Never
care more for a man with your ’ed than you can kick off with your
’eels’?--Splendid! And you mean it?”

Grace nodded emphatically.

“Of course I mean it! It don’t do to care too much for a man,--he’s
always a sort o’ spoilt babe, and what he gets easy he don’t care for,
and what he can’t have he’s always crying, crying after. You’ll find
that true, Miss Diana!”

The sparkle of laughter quenched itself in Diana’s eyes and left her
looking weary.

“Yes--I daresay you are right,” she said--“quite right, Grace!” And
looking up, she spoke slowly and rather sadly. “Perhaps it’s true--some
people say it is--that men like bad women better than good,--and that
if a woman is thoroughly selfish, vain and reckless, treating men with
complete indifference and contempt, they admire her much more than if
she were loving and faithful.”

“Of course!” assented Grace, positively. “Look at Mrs.
Potter-Barney!--the one the halfpenny newspapers call the ‘beautiful
Mrs. Barney’! I know a maid who was told by another maid that she got
five hundred guineas for a kiss!--and Lady Wasterwick has had thousands
of pounds for----”

Diana held up a hand,--she smiled still, but a trifle austerely.

“That will do, Grace!”

Grace coughed discreetly and subsided.

“Is mother still lying down?” then asked Diana.

“Yes, miss. She’ll be on her bed till the dinner dressing bell rings.
And Mr. May’s asleep over his newspaper in the garden.”

Again Diana laughed her clear, pretty laugh. The somnolent habits of
her parents were so enlivening, and made home-life so cheerful!

“Well, all right, Grace,” she said. “If there’s nothing for me to do I
shall go for a walk presently. So you’ll know what to say if I’m asked
for.”

Grace assented, and then departed. Diana finished her cup of tea in
meditative mood,--then, resolving to throw her retrospective thoughts
to the winds, prepared to go out. It was an exceptionally fine
afternoon, warm and brilliant, and instead of her navy linen gown
which had seen considerable wear and tear, she put on a plain white
one which became her much better than the indigo blue, and, completing
her costume with a very simple straw hat and white parasol, she went
downstairs and out of the house into the garden. She had meant to
avoid her father, whom she saw on the lawn, under the spreading boughs
of a cedar tree, seated in one rustic arm-chair, with his short legs
comfortably disposed on another, and the day’s newspaper modestly
spread as a coverlet over his unbuttoned waistcoat,--but an inquisitive
wasp happening to buzz too near his nose he made a dart at it with one
hand, and opening his eyes, perceived her white figure moving across
the grass.

“Who’s that? What’s that?” he called out, sharply. “Don’t glide about
like a ghost! Is it you, Diana?”

“Yes,--it’s me,” she replied, and came up beside him.

He gave her a casual look,--then sniffed and smiled sardonically.

“Dear me! How fine we are! I thought it was some young girl of the
neighbourhood leaving cards on your mother! Why are you wearing white?
Going to a wedding?”

Diana coloured to the roots of her pretty hair.

“It’s one of my washing frocks,” she submitted.

“Oh, is it? Well, I like to see you in dark colours--they are more
suited to--to your age. Only very young people should wear white.”

He yawned capaciously. “Only very young people,” he repeated, closing
his eyes. “Try and remember that.”

“Mrs. Ross-Percival wears white,” said Diana, quietly. “You are always
holding her up to admiration. And she’s sixty, if she’s a day.”

Mr. Polydore May opened his eyes and bounced up in his chair.

“Mrs. Ross-Percival is a very beautiful woman!” he snapped out. “One of
_the_ beautiful women of society. And she’s married.”

“Oh, yes, she’s a grandmother,” murmured Diana, smiling. “But you don’t
tell _her_ not to wear white.”

“Good God, of course not! It’s no business of mine! What are you
talking about? She’s not my daughter!”

Diana laughed her pretty soft laugh.

“No, indeed! Poor Pa! That _would_ be terrible!--she’d make you seem so
old if she were! But perhaps you wouldn’t mind as she’s so beautiful!”

Mr. May stared at her wrathfully with the feeling that he was being
made fun of.

“She _is_ beautiful!” he said, firmly. “Only a jealous woman would dare
to question it!”

Diana laughed again.

“Very well, she _is_ beautiful! Wig and all!” she said, and moved away,
opening her parasol as she passed from the shadow of the cedar boughs
into the full sun.

“She’s getting beyond herself!” thought her father, watching her as she
went, and noting what he was pleased to consider “affectation” in her
naturally graceful way of walking. “And if she once begins that sort of
game, she’ll be unbearable! Nothing can be worse than an old maid who
gets beyond herself or above herself! She’ll be fancying some man is in
love with her next!”

He gave a snort of scorn and composed himself to sleep again; meanwhile
Diana had left the garden and was walking at an easy pace, which was
swift without seeming hurried, down to the sea shore. It was very
lovely there at this particular afternoon hour,--the tide was coming
in, and the long shining waves rolled up one after the other in smooth
lines of silver on sand that shone in wet patches like purest gold. The
air was soft and warm but not oppressive, and as the solitary woman
lifted her eyes to the peaceful blue sky arched like a sheltering dome
above the peaceful blue sea, her solitude was for the moment more
intensified. More keenly than ever she felt that there was no one to
whom she could look for so much as a loving word,--not in her own
home, at any rate. Her friends were few; Sophy Lansing was one of the
most intimate,--but Sophy lived such a life of activity, throwing her
energies into so many channels, that it was not possible to get into
very close or constant companionship with her.

“While I live,” she said to herself, deliberately, “I shall have no one
to care for me--I must make up my mind to that. And when I die,--if I
go to heaven there will be no one there who cares for me,--and, if I
go to hell, no one there either!” She laughed at this idea, but there
were tears in her eyes. “It’s curious not to have anyone on earth or in
heaven or hell who wants you! I wonder if there are many like that! And
yet--I’ve never done anything wicked or spiteful to deserve being left
so unloved.”

She had come to a small, deep cove, picturesquely walled in by high
masses of rock whose summits were gay with creeping plants, grass and
flowers, and though the sea was calm, the pressure of the incoming tide
through the narrow inlet made waves that were almost boisterous, as
they rushed in and out with a musical splash and roar. It was hardly
safe or prudent to walk further on. “Any of those waves could carry
one off one’s feet in a minute,” she thought, and went upwards from
the beach beyond the highest mark left by the fringes of the sea,
where the fragments of an old broken boat made a very good seat. Here
she rested awhile, allowing vague ideas of a possible future to drift
through her brain. The prospect of a visit to Sophy Lansing seemed
agreeable enough,--but she very well knew that it would be opposed by
her parents,--that her mother would say she could not spare her,--and
that her father would demand angrily:

“What have I taken this seaside house for? Out of pure good-nature and
unselfishness, just to give you and your mother a summer holiday, and
now you want to go away! That’s the way I’m rewarded for my kindness!”

If anyone had pointed out that he had only thought of himself and his
own convenience in taking the “seaside house,” and that he had chosen
it chiefly because it was close to the golf links and also to the
Club, where there was a billiard-room, and that his “women folk” were
scarcely considered in the matter at all, he would have been extremely
indignant. He never saw himself in any other light but that of justice,
generosity and nobility of disposition. Diana knew his “little ways,”
and laughed at them though she regretted them.

“Poor Pa!” she would sigh. “He would be so much more lovable if he were
not quite so selfish. But I suppose he can’t help it.”

And, on turning all the pros and cons over in her mind, she came to
the conclusion that it would not be fair to leave her mother alone to
arrange all the details of daily life in a strange house and strange
neighbourhood where the tradespeople were not accustomed to the worthy
lady’s rather vague ideas of domestic management, such as the ordering
of the dinner two hours before it ought to be cooked, and other similar
trifles, resulting in kitchen chaos.

“After all, I ought to be very contented!” and lifting her head, she
smiled resignedly at the placid sea. “It’s lovely down here,--and
I can always read a good deal,--and sew,--I can finish my bit of
tapestry,--and I can master that wonderful new treatise on Etheric
Vibration----”

Here something seemed to catch her breath,--she felt a curious
quickening thrill as though an “etheric vibration” had touched her own
nerves and set them quivering. Some words of the advertisement she
had lately read sounded on her ears as though spoken by a voice close
beside her:

“She must have a fair knowledge of modern science and must not shrink
from dangerous experiments, or be afraid to take risks in the pursuit
of discoveries which may be beneficial to the human race.”

She rose from her seat a little startled, her cheeks flushing with the
stir of some inexplicable excitement in her blood.

“How strange that I should think of that just now!” she said. “I
wonder”--and she laughed--“I wonder whether I should suit Dr. Féodor
Dimitrius!”

The idea amused her,--it was so new,--so impracticable and absurd! Yet
it remained in her mind, giving sparkle to her eyes and colour and
animation to her face as she walked slowly home in a sort of visionary
reverie.




CHAPTER III


Within a very few days of their “settling down” at Rose Lea, everybody
in the neighbourhood,--that is to say, everybody of “county”
standing--that height of social magnificence--had left their cards on
Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May. They had, of course, previously made the
usual private “kind inquiries,”--first as to the newcomers’ financial
position, and next as to their respectability, and both were found to
be unimpeachable. One of the most curious circumstances in this curious
world is the strictness with which certain little bipeds inquire into
the reported life and conduct of other little bipeds, the inquisitors
themselves being generally the most doubtful characters.

“Funny little man, that Mr. May!” said the woman leader of the “hunting
set,” who played bridge all day and as far into the night as she could.
“Like a retired tradesman! Must have sold cheese and butter at some
time of his life!”

“Oh, no!” explained a male intimate, whose physiognomy strangely
resembled that of the fox he chased all the winter. “He made his pile
in copper.”

“Oh, did he? Then he’s quite decent?”

“Quite!”

“That daughter of his----”

Here a snigger went round the “county” company. They were discussing
the new arrivals at their afternoon tea.

“Poor old thing!”

“Must be forty if she’s a day!”

“Oh, give the dear ‘girl’ forty-five at least!” said a Chivalrous
Youth, declining tea, and helping himself to a whisky-soda at the
side-board.

“They say she was jilted.”

“No wonder!” And a bleating laugh followed this suggestion.

“I suppose,” remarked one man of gloomy countenance and dyspeptic eye,
“I suppose it’s really unpardonable for a woman to get out of her
twenties and remain unmarried, but if it happens so I don’t see what’s
to be done with her.”

“Smother her!” said the Chivalrous Youth, drinking his whisky.

Everybody laughed. What a witty boy he was!--no wonder his mother was
proud of him!

“We shall have to ask her to one or two tennis parties,” said the woman
who had first spoken. “We can’t leave her out altogether.”

“She doesn’t play,” said the gloomy man. “She told me so. She reads
Greek.”

A shrill chorus of giggles in falsetto greeted this announcement.

“Reads Greek! How perfectly dreadful! A blue-stocking!”

“No! Really! It’s _too_ weird!” exclaimed the bridge-and-hunting lady.
“I hope she’s not an ‘art’ person?”

“No.” And the gloomy man began to be cheerful, seeing that his talk
had awakened a little interest. “No, not at all. She told me she liked
pictures, but hated artists. I said she couldn’t have pictures without
artists, and she agreed, but observed that fortunately all the finest
pictures of the world were painted by artists who were dead. Curious
way of putting it!”

“Going off it?” queried the Chivalrous Youth, having now drained his
tumbler of drink.

“No, I don’t think so. The fact is--er--she--well, she appeared to me
to be rather--er--clever!”

Clever? Oh, surely not! The “county” dames almost shuddered. Clever?
She couldn’t be, you know!--not with that spoilt old-young sort of
face! And her hair! All dyed, of course! And her voice was very
affected, wasn’t it? Yes!--almost as if she were trying to imitate
Sarah Bernhardt! So stupid in a woman of her age! She ought to know
better!

So the little vicious, poisonous, gossiping mouths jabbered and hissed
about the woman who was “left” like a forgotten apple on a bough to
wither and drop unregarded to the ground. No one had anything kind to
say of her. It mattered not at all that they were not really acquainted
with her personally or sufficiently to be able to form an opinion,--the
point with these precious sort of persons was, and always is, that an
unwanted feminine nonentity had arrived in the neighbourhood who was
superfluous, and therefore likely to be tiresome.

“One can always leave her out of a dinner invitation,” said one woman,
thoughtfully. “It will be quite enough to ask Mr. and Mrs.”

“Oh, quite!”

Thus it was settled; meanwhile Diana, happily unconscious of any
discussion concerning her, went on the even tenor of her way, keeping
house for her parents, reading her favourite authors, studying her
“scientific” subjects, and working at her tapestry without any real
companionship save that of books and her own thoughts, and the constant
delight she had in the profusion of flowers with which the gardens of
Rose Lea abounded. These she arranged with exquisite taste and effect
in the various rooms, so artistically that on one occasion the vicar
of the parish, quite a dull, unimaginative man, was moved, during an
afternoon call, to compliment Mrs. Polydore May on the remarkable grace
with which some branches of roses were grouped in a vase on the table.
Mrs. May looked at them sleepily and smiled.

“Very pretty, yes!” she murmured. “I used to arrange every flower
myself, but now my daughter Diana does it for me. You see she can give
her time to it,--she has nothing else to do.”

The vicar smiled the usual smile of polite agreement to everything
which always gives a touch of sickliness to the most open countenance,
and said no more. Diana was not present, so she did not hear that her
mother considered she “had nothing else to do” but arrange flowers.
Even if she had heard it, she would hardly have contradicted it; it
was one of those things which she would not have thought worth while
arguing about. The fact that she governed all the domestic working
of the house so that it ran like a perfectly-going machine on silent
and well-oiled wheels, required no emphasis,--at least, not in her
opinion,--and though she knew that not one of the servants would have
stayed in Mrs. May’s service or put up with her vague, fussy, and often
sulky disposition, unless she, Diana, had “managed” them, she took no
credit to herself for the comfortable and well-ordered condition of
things under which her selfish old parents enjoyed their existence.
That she “had nothing else to do but arrange flowers” was a sort of
house tradition with “Pa” and “Ma” through which they found all manner
of excuse for saddling her with as much work as they could possibly
give her in the way of constant attendance on themselves. But she did
not mind. She was obsessed by the “Duty” fetish, which too often makes
prisoners and slaves of those who should be free. Like all virtues,
devotion to duty can become a vice if carried to excess, and it is
unquestionably a vice when it binds unselfish souls to unworthy and
tyrannical taskmasters.

The summer moved on in shining weeks of sunlight and still air, and
Rose Lea lost nothing of its charm for Diana, despite the taint of the
commonplace with which the eating and sleeping silkworm-lives of her
parents invested it. Now and then a few visitors came from London,--men
and women of the usual dull type, bringing no entertainment in
themselves, and whose stay only meant a little more expenditure and
a more lavish display of food. One or two portly club friends of
James Polydore came to play golf and drink whisky with him, and they
condescended to converse with Diana at meals, because, perforce, they
thought they must,--but meals being over, they gave her no further
consideration, except to remark casually one to another: “Pity old
Polydore couldn’t have got that daughter off his hands!” And the long,
lovely month of August was nearly at its end when an incident happened
which, like the small displacement of earth that loosens an avalanche,
swept away all the old order of things, giving place to a new heaven
and a new earth so far as Diana was concerned.

It had been an exceedingly warm day, and nightfall was more than
usually welcome after the wide glare of the long, sunlit hours.
Dinner was over, and Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May, fed to repletion and
stimulated by two or three glasses of excellent champagne, were resting
in a _dolce-far-niente_ condition, each cushioned within a deep and
luxurious arm-chair placed on either side of the open French windows
of the drawing-room. The lawn in front of them was bathed in a lovely
light reflected from the after-glow of the vanished sun and a pale
glimmer from the risen half-moon, which hung in soft brilliance over
the eastern half of the quiet sea. Diana had left her parents to their
after-dinner somnolence, and was walking alone in the garden, up and
down a grass path between two rose hedges. She was within call should
she be wanted by either “Pa” or “Ma,” but they were not aware of her
close proximity. Mr. May was smoking an exceptionally choice cigar,--he
was in one of his “juvenile” moods, and for once was not inclined to
take his usual “cat-nap” or waking doze. He had been to a tennis party
that afternoon and had worn, with a “young man’s fancy” a young man’s
flannels, happily unconscious of the weird appearance he presented in
that unsuitable attire,--and, encouraged by the laughter and applause
of the more youthful players, who looked upon him as the “comic man”
of the piece, he had acquitted himself tolerably well. So that for the
moment he had cast off the dignity and weight of years, and the very
air with which he smoked his cigar, flicking off the burnt ash now and
again in the affected style of a “young blood about town,” expressed
the fact that he considered himself more than a merely “well-preserved”
man, and that if justice were done him he would be admitted to be “a
violet in the youth of primy nature.”

His better-half was not in quite such pleasant humour; she was
self-complacent enough, but the heat of the day had caused her to feel
stouter and more unwieldy than usual, and inclined to wish:

    “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
    Thaw and dissolve itself into a dew!”

When her husband lit his cigar, she had closed her eyes, thinking:
“Now there will be a little peace!” knowing that a good cigar to an
irritable man is like the bottle to a screaming baby. But Mr. May was
disposed to talk, just as he was disposed to admire the contour of his
little finger whenever he drew his cigar from his mouth or put it back
again.

“There were some smart girls playing tennis to-day,” he presently
remarked. “One of them I thought very pretty. She was about seventeen.”

His wife yawned expansively. She made no comment.

“She was my partner,” went on Mr. May. “As skittish as you please!”

Mrs. May cuddled herself together among her cushions. The slightest
glimmer of a smile lifted the corners of her pursy mouth towards her
parsimonious nose. Her husband essayed once more the fascinating
“flick” of burnt ash from his cigar.

“They’d have been as dull as a sermon at tea-time if it hadn’t been for
me,” he resumed. “You see, I kept the ball rolling.”

“Naturally!--it’s tennis,” murmured his wife, drowsily.

“Don’t be a fool, Margaret! I mean I keep people amused.”

“I’m sure you do!” his “Margaret” agreed, as she smothered another
yawn. “You’re the most amusing man I know!”

“Glad you admit it!” he said, captiously. “Not being amusing yourself,
you ought to thank God you’ve got an amusing husband!”

This time Mrs. May emitted a bleating giggle.

“I do!”

“Now if it were not for Diana----”

His wife opened her eyes.

“What about Diana?”

“Well--Diana--put it how you like, but she’s Diana. She’ll never
be anything else! Our daughter, oh, yes!--I know all that!--hang
sentiment! Everybody calls her an old maid--and she’s in the way.”

A light-footed figure pacing up and down the grass walk, unseen between
the two rose hedges close by, came to a sudden pause--listening.

“She’s in the way,” repeated Mr. May, with somewhat louder emphasis.
“Unmarried women of a certain age always are, you know. You can’t
class them with young people, and they don’t like being parcelled
off with old folks. They’re out of it altogether unless they’ve got
something to do which takes them away from their homes and saves them
from becoming a social nuisance. They’re superfluous. ‘How is your
daughter?’ the women here ask me, with a kind of pitying smile, as
though she had the plague, or was recovering from small-pox. To be a
spinster over thirty seems to them a kind of illness.”

“Well, it’s an illness that cannot be cured with Diana now!” sighed
Mrs. May. “Quite hopeless!”

“Quite.” And her husband gave his chronic snort of ill-tempered
defiance. “It’s a most unfortunate thing--especially for _me_. You see,
when I go about with a daughter like Diana, it makes me seem so old!”

“And me!” she interposed. “You talk only of yourself,--don’t forget me!”

Mr. May laughed--a short, sardonic laugh.

“_You!_ My dear Margaret, I don’t wish to be unkind, but really _you_
needn’t worry yourself on that score! Surely you don’t suppose _you’ll_
ever look young again? Think of your size, Margaret!--think of your
size!”

Somewhat roused from her customary inertia by this remark, Mrs. May
pulled herself up in her chair with an assumption of dignity.

“You are very coarse, James,” she said--“very coarse indeed! I consider
that I look as young as you do any day,--I ought to, for you are
fully eight years my senior--I daresay more, for I doubt if you gave
your true age when I married you. You want to play the young man, and
you only make yourself ridiculous,--I have no wish to play the young
woman, but certainly Diana, with her poor, thin face--getting so
many wrinkles, too!--does make me seem older than I am. She has aged
terribly the last three or four years.”

“She’ll never see forty again,” said Mr. May, tersely.

Mrs. May rolled up her eyes in pained protest.

“Why _say_ it?” she expostulated. “You only give yourself and me away!
We are her parents!”

“I don’t say it in public,” he replied. “Catch me! But it’s true. Let
me see!--why, Diana was born in----”

His wife gave an angry gesture.

“Never mind when she was born!” she said, with a tremble as of tears in
her voice. “You needn’t recall it! Our only child!--and she has spoilt
her life and mine too!”

A faint whimper escaped her, and she put a filmy handkerchief to her
eyes.

Mr. May took no notice. For women’s tears he had a sovereign contempt.

“The fact is,” he said, judicially, “we ought to have trained her
to do something useful. Nursing, or doctoring, or dressmaking, or
type-writing. She would have had her business to attend to, which would
have kept her away from _Us_,--and I--we--could have gone about free as
air. We need never have mentioned that we had a daughter.”

Mrs. May looked scrutinizingly at her lace handkerchief. She remembered
it had cost a couple of guineas, and now there was a hole in it. She
must tell Diana to mend it. With this thought uppermost in her always
chaotic mind, she said between two long-drawn sighs:

“After all, James, poor Diana does her best. She is very useful in the
house.”

“Stuff and nonsense! She does nothing at all! She spoils the servants,
if that is what you mean,--allows them to have their own way a great
deal too much, in my opinion! It amuses her to play at housekeeping.”

“She doesn’t play at it,” remonstrated Mrs. May, weakly endeavouring
to espouse the cause of justice. “She is very earnest and painstaking
about it, and does it very well. She keeps down expenses, and saves me
a great deal of worry.”

“Hm-m-m!” growled her husband. “It would do you good to be worried a
bit! Take down your weight! Of course, what can’t be cured must be
endured, but I’ve spoken the brutal truth,--Diana, at her age, and with
her looks, and all her chances of marriage gone, is _in the way_. For
instance, suppose I go to a new neighbour’s house, and I’m asked ‘Have
you any family?’--I reply: ‘Yes, one daughter.’ Then some fool of a
woman says: ‘Oh, do bring your girl with you next time!’ Well, she’s
not a ‘girl.’ I don’t wish to say she’s not, but if I do take her with
me ‘next time,’ everybody is surprised. You see, when they look at
_me_, they expect my daughter to be quite a young person.”

Mrs. May sank gradually back in her chair, as though she were slowly
pushed by an invisible finger.

“_Do_ they?” The query was almost inaudible.

“Of course they do! And upon my soul, it’s rather trying to a man! You
ought to sympathise, but you don’t!”

“Well, I really can’t see what’s to be done!” she murmured, closing
her eyes in sheer weariness. “Diana cannot help getting older, poor
thing!--and she’s our child----”

“Don’t I know she’s our child?” he snapped out. “What do you keep on
telling me that for?”

“Why, I mean that you can’t turn her out of the house, or say you don’t
want her, or anything of that sort. But I’m sure”--here, the round,
pale eyes opened appealingly over the buff-coloured cheeks--“I’m sure,
James, that if you don’t wish to take her out with you she’d never
dream of expecting you to do so. She’s very unselfish,--besides, she’s
so happy with her books.”

“Books--books!--hang books!” he exclaimed, irascibly. “There’s another
drawback! If there’s one thing people object to more than another, it’s
a bookish spinster! Any assumption of knowledge in a woman is quite
enough to keep her out of society!”

His wife yawned.

“I dare say!” she admitted. “But I can’t help it.”

“You want to go to sleep,--that’s what _you_ want!” said Mr. May,
contemptuously. “Well, sleep!--I’m going over to the Club.”

She murmured an inward “Thank God!” and settled down in her chair to
her deferred and much desired doze. Mr. May threw on his cap,--one of a
jaunty shape, which he fondly imagined gave him the look of a dashing
sportsman of some thirty summers--and stepped out on to the now fully
moonlit lawn, crossing it at as “swinging” a pace as his little legs
would allow him, and making for the high road just outside the garden
gates.

Not till he had disappeared did the figure which had stayed
statuesquely still between the two rose hedges show any sign of
movement. Then it stirred, its dark grey draperies swaying like mist in
a light wind. The bright moonlight fell on its uplifted face,--Diana’s
face, pale always, but paler than ever in that ghostly radiance from
the skies. She had heard all,--and there was a curious sense of
tightening pain in her throat and round her heart, as if an overflow
of tears or laughter struggled against repression. She had stood in
such a motionless attitude of strained attention that her limbs felt
cramped and stiff, so that when she began to walk it was almost with
difficulty. She turned her back to the house and went towards the sea,
noiselessly opening the little white gate that led to the shore. She
was soon on the smooth soft sand where the little wet pools glittered
like silver in the moon, and, going to the edge of the sea, she stood
awhile, watching wave after wave glide up in small, fine lines and
break at her feet in a delicate fringe of snowy foam. She was not
conscious of any particularly keen grief or hurt feeling at the verdict
of her general tiresomeness which her parents had passed upon her,--her
thoughts were not in any way troubled; she only felt that the last
thing she had clung to as giving value to life,--her affection and duty
towards the old people,--was counted as valueless,--she was merely “in
the way.” Watching the waves, she smiled,--a pitiful little smile.

“Poor old dears!” she said, tenderly,--and again: “Poor old dears!”

Then there arose within her another impulse,--a suggestion almost
wildly beautiful,--the idea of freedom! No one wanted her,--not even
her father or her mother. Then was she not at liberty? Could she not
go where she liked? Surely! Just as a light globe of thistledown is
blown by the wind to fall where it will, so she could drift with the
movement of casual things anywhere,--so long as she troubled nobody by
her existence.

“The world is wide!” she said, half-aloud, stretching her arms with an
unconscious gesture of appeal towards the sea. “I have stayed too long
in one small corner of it!”

The little waves plashed one upon the other with a musical whisper as
though they agreed with her thought,--and yet--yet there was something
appalling in the utter loneliness of her heart. No one loved her,--no
one wanted her! She was “in the way.” Smarting tears filled her
eyes,--but they angered her by their confession of weakness, and she
dashed them away with a quick, defiant hand. She began to consider her
position coldly and critically. Her thoughts soon ranged themselves
in order like obedient soldiers at drill under their commanding
officer,--each in its place and ready for action. It was useless to
expect help or sympathy from anyone,--she would not get it. She must
stand alone. It is perhaps a little hard and difficult to stand alone
when one is a woman; it used to be considered cruel and pitiful, but
in these days it has become such a matter of course that no one thinks
about it or cares. The nature and temperament of woman as God made her,
have not altered; with all her “advancement,” she is just as amative,
as credulous, as tender, as maternal as ever she was, longing for man’s
love as her “right,” which it is, and becoming hardened and embittered
when this right is withheld from her,--but the rush of the time is too
swift and precipitous for any display of masculine chivalry on her
behalf; she has elected to be considered co-equal with man, and she is
now, after a considerable tussle, to be given her “chance.” What she
will make of the long-deferred privilege remains a matter of conjecture.

Slowly, and with a vague reluctance, Diana turned away from the moonlit
sea; the murmur of the little waves followed her, like suggestive
whispers. A curious change had taken place in her mentality during the
last few minutes. She, who was accustomed to think only of others, now
thought closely and consistently of herself. She moved quietly towards
the house, gliding like a grey ghost across the lawn which showed
almost white in the spreading radiance of the moon,--the drawing-room
windows were still open, and Mrs. May was still comfortably ensconced
in her arm-chair, sleeping soundly and snoring hideously. Her daughter
came up and stood beside her, quite unobserved. Nothing could have been
more unlovely than the aspect she presented, sunk among the cushions,
a mere adipose heap, with her fat cheeks, small nose and open mouth
protruding above the folds of a grey woollen shawl which was her
favourite evening wear, her resemblance to a pig being more striking
than pleasing. But Diana’s watching face expressed nothing but the
gentlest solicitude.

“Poor mother!” she sighed to herself. “She’s tired! And--and of course,
it’s natural she should be disappointed in me. I’ve not been a success!
Poor dear mother! God bless her!”

She went out of the room noiselessly, and made her way upstairs. She
met Grace Laurie.

“I’m going to bed, Grace,” she said. “I’ve got a tiresome headache, and
shall be better lying down. If mother wants to know where I am, will
you tell her?”

“Yes, miss. Can I do anything for you?” Grace asked, for, as she often
said afterwards, she “thought Miss Diana looked a bit feverish.”

“No, thanks very much!” Diana answered in her sweet-voiced, pleasant
manner. “Bed is the best place for me. Good-night!”

“Good-night, miss.” And Diana entering her own room, locked the door.
She was eager to be alone. Her window was open, and she went to that
and looked out. All was silent and calm; the night was beautiful. The
sea spread itself out in gently heaving stretches of mingled light and
shade, and above it bent a sky in which the moon’s increasing splendour
swamped the sparkling of the stars. The air was very still,--not a
leaf on any small branch of tree or plant stirred. The scent of roses
and sweet-briar and honeysuckle floated upwards like incense from the
flower altars of the earth.

“I am free!” murmured Diana to the hushed night. “Free!”

And then, turning, she saw herself in the mirror, as she had already
seen herself that day,--only with a greater sense of shock. The
evening gown she wore, chosen to please her father’s taste, of dull,
dowdy-grey chiffon, intensified her worn and “ageing” look; the colour
of her hair was deadened by contrast with it, and in very truth she had
at that moment a sad and deplorably jaded aspect.

“Free!” she repeated, in self-scorn. “And what is the use of freedom to
me at my age!--and with my face and figure!”

She shrank from her own pitiful “double” in the glass,--it seemed
asking her why she was ever born! Then, she put away all doleful
thoughts that might weaken her or shake her already formed
resolution:--“Nothing venture, nothing have!” she said. And, shutting
her window, she drew the blinds and curtains close, so that no glimpse
of light from her room might be seen by her father when he should
cross the lawn on his return from the Club. She had plenty to do, and
she began to do it. She had a clear plan in view, and as she said to
herself, a trifle bitterly, she “was old enough” to carry it out. And
when all her preparations were fully made and completed, she went to
bed and slept peacefully till the first break of dawn.




CHAPTER IV


When morning came it brought with it intense heat and an almost
overpowering glare of sunshine, and Mr. James Polydore May,
stimulated by the warm atmosphere, went down to breakfast in a suit
of white flannels. Why not? A sportive and youthful spirit had
entered into him with his yesterday’s experience of tennis, and his
“skittish-as-you-please” partner of seventeen; and, walking with a
jaunty step, he felt that there was, and could be, no objection to the
wearing of white, as far as he was concerned. But--had he not said on
the previous day to his daughter, “Only very young people should wear
white?” Ah, yes--his daughter, as a woman, was too old for it! ... but
he,--why, if the latest scientific dictum is correct, namely, that
a man is only as old as his arteries, then he, James Polydore May,
was convinced that arterially speaking, he was a mere boy! True, his
figure was a little “gone” from its original slimness,--but plenty of
golf and general “bracing-up” would soon put that all right, so that
even the “skittish-as-you-please” young thing might not altogether
despise his attentions. Whistling gaily the charming tune of “Believe
me if all those endearing young charms,” he contemplated the well set
out breakfast table with satisfaction. He was first in the field that
morning, and his better half had not been at the fried bacon before
him, selecting all the best bits as was her usual custom. He sat down
to that toothsome dish and helped himself bountifully; then, missing
the unobtrusive hand which generally placed his cup of tea beside him,
he called to the parlour-maid:

“Where’s Miss Diana? Isn’t she up?”

“Oh, yes, sir. She was up very early--about six, I believe,--and she
went down to the cove to bathe, so she told the kitchen-maid.”

“Not back yet?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. May pulled out his watch and glanced at it. It was half-past nine.
At that moment his wife entered the room.

“Oh, you’re out of bed at last!” he said. “Well, now you can pour out
my tea and mind you don’t fill the cup too full. Diana hasn’t got back
from her dip.”

Mrs. May was still rather sleepy, and, as usual, more or less
inattentive to her husband’s remarks. She began turning over the
letters the post had just brought for her, whereat Mr. May gave a sharp
rap on the table with the handle of a fork.

“My tea!” he repeated. “D’ye hear? I want my tea!”

Mrs. May rolled her pale eyes at him protestingly as she lifted the
teapot.

“I hear perfectly,” she answered with an assumption of dignity. “And
please be civil! You can’t bully me as you bully Diana.”

“I bully Diana! I!” And Mr. May gave a short, scornful laugh. “Come,
I like that! Why, the woman doesn’t know what bullying is! She’s had
a path of roses all her life--roses, I tell you! Never a care,--never
a worry,--no financial difficulties--always enough to eat, and a
comfortable home to live in. What more can she want? Bully, indeed!
If she had married that confounded officer for whom she wasted the
best seven years of her life, then she’d have known something about
bullying! Rather! And I daresay it ’ud have done her good. Better than
being an old maid, anyhow.”

Mrs. May handed him his tea across the table.

“I wonder where she is?” she questioned, plaintively. “I’ve never known
her so late before.”

“Went out at six,” said Mr. May, with his mouth full of bacon. “The
kitchen-maid saw her go.”

Mrs. May rang a small hand-bell at her side.

The parlour-maid answered it.

“Hasn’t Miss Diana come in?”

“No, ’m.”

Mrs. May rubbed her small nose perplexedly.

“Who saw her go out?”

“The kitchen-maid, ’m. She was cleaning the doorstep when Miss Diana
came out, and said she was going for a sea bath. That was about six
o’clock, ’m.”

Again Mrs. May rubbed her nose.

“Send Grace here.”

“Yes, ’m.”

Another minute, and Grace Laurie appeared.

“Grace, did you see Miss Diana go out this morning?”

“No, ’m. Last night I met her on the stairs, and she said she had a
headache and was going to bed early. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Good heavens, Margaret, what a fuss you’re making!” here exclaimed Mr.
May. “One would think she’d been carried off in an aeroplane! Surely
she’s old enough to take care of herself! She’s probably gone for a
walk after bathing, and forgotten the time.”

“That’s not like Miss Diana, sir,” ventured Grace, respectfully. “She
never forgets anything.”

“Another cup of tea, Margaret, and look sharp!” interposed Mr. May,
testily.

Mrs. May sighed, and poured hot water into the tea-pot. Then she
addressed Grace in a low tone.

“Ask the kitchen-maid just what Miss Diana said.”

Grace retired, and returned again quickly.

“Miss Diana came down at about six this morning,” she said. “And Jenny,
the kitchen-maid, was the only one of us up. She was cleaning the
doorstep, and moved her pail for Miss Diana to pass. Miss Diana had on
her navy blue serge and black straw sailor hat, and she carried what
Jenny thought were her bathing things hanging over her arm. She was
very bright and said: ‘Good-morning, Jenny! I’m going for a dip in the
sea before the sun gets too hot.’ And so she went.”

“And so she went--Amen!” said Mr. May, biting a hard bit of toast
noisily. “And so she’ll come back, and wonder what all the deuced fuss
is about. As if a woman of her age couldn’t go for a bath and a walk
without being inquired after as if she were a two-year-old! Are you
going to have your breakfast, Margaret?--or do you prefer to read your
letters first?”

His wife made no reply. She was watching the boiling of an egg in a
small, specially constructed vessel for the purpose, which Diana had
added to the conveniences of the breakfast table. She was annoyed that
Diana herself was not there to attend to it. Diana always knew when the
egg was done to a turn. Grace still lingered in the room. Mrs. May,
languidly raising her fish-like eyes, saw her.

“You can go, Grace.”

“Yes, ’m. Shall I just run out to the shore and see if Miss Diana is
coming?”

“Yes. And tell her to make haste back--I want her to do some shopping
in the village for me.”

Grace left the room, closing the door behind her. A clock on the
mantelpiece gave several little sharp ting-tings.

“What time is that?” asked Mrs. May.

“Ten o’clock,” replied her husband, unfolding the day’s newspaper and
beginning to read.

“Dear me! How very extraordinary of Diana to be out from six in the
morning till now!” And with the aid of a spoon she carefully lifted the
egg she had been watching as though it were the most precious object in
life out of the boiling water, in mournful doubt as to whether, after
all, it really was done perfectly. “It’s so unlike her.”

“Well, you may be pretty certain no one has run away with her,” said
Mr. May, ironically. “She’s safe enough. The ‘dear child’ has not
eloped!”

Mrs. May ignored both his words and his manner. She looked at him
meditatively over the lid of the silver teapot and permitted herself to
smile,--a small, fat, pursy smile.

“Those white flannels have got rather tight for you, haven’t they?” she
suggested.

He flushed indignantly.

“Tight? Certainly not! Do they _look_ tight?”

“Well--just a little!--but of course white always makes one appear
stout----”

“Stout! _You_ talk about stoutness? _You!_ Why, I’m a paper-knife
compared to you!--a positive paper-knife! I believe you actually grudge
my wearing white flannels!”

His wife laughed.

“Indeed, no!” she declared. “It amuses me! I rather like it!”

“I should think you did!” he retorted. “Or, if you don’t, you ought to!”

She surveyed him pensively with round, lacklustre eyes.

“What a long time it is!” she said--“What a long, long time since
you were thin!--really quite thin, James! Do you remember? When you
proposed to me in father’s dining-room and the parlour-maid came in and
lit the gas, just as you were going to----”

“You seem very reminiscent this morning,” interrupted her husband,
sharply. “Do white flannels move you to sentiment?”

“Oh, no!--not at all--not now!” she replied, with a small giggle. “Only
one cannot but think of the change between then and now--it’s almost
humorous----”

“I should think it is!” he agreed. “It’s more than humorous! It’s
comic! What d’ye expect? When I think of what _you_ were!--a nice
little pink and white thing with a small waist,--and see you
_now_!”--here he snorted half contemptuously. “But there!--we can’t all
remain young, and you’re quite comfortable looking--a sort of pillow of
ease,--you might be worse----”

Here their mutual personal compliments were interrupted by the hurried
entrance of Grace Laurie, looking pale and scared.

“Oh ’m, I’m afraid some accident has happened to Miss Diana!” she said,
breathlessly. “I’ve been all the way down to the cove, and--and----”

Here she suddenly burst out crying. Mr. May bounced up from his chair.

“Deuce take the woman!--don’t stand there grizzling! What’s the matter?
Speak out!”

Mrs. May stared feebly, her mouth opening slowly, like that of a fish
on dry land.

“What--what is it, Grace?” she stammered. “You frighten me!”

“Yes ’m, I know, but I can’t help it!” Grace answered, gaspingly.
“But--but I’ve been down to the cove--and all round in every place, and
there’s Miss Diana’s clothes all put together on the rocks, with her
shoes and hat and bathing towel, but--but--there’s no Miss Diana!” Here
her emotions got the better of her, and she gave a small scream. “Oh,
oh! I’m sure she’s drowned!--oh, Miss Diana, poor thing! I’m sure she’s
drowned!--she’s been carried off her feet by the waves!--there was a
high tide this morning, and I know she’s drowned! She’s drowned, she’s
drowned!”

Her voice rose to a high shrill pitch, and she wrung her hands.

Mrs. May struggled weakly out of her chair, and then dropped heavily
into it again.

“Drowned! Diana! Don’t be foolish, Grace! It’s not possible!”

Mr. May seized his cap and threw it on his head.

“Here, I’ll soon put a stop to all this nonsense!” he said. “Let _me_
get down to the cove,--what’s the good of a parcel of silly fools
of women shrieking and crying before they know what’s happened!” He
marched up to Grace Laurie and grasped her by the shoulder. “Now, be
calm! _Can_ you be calm?”

Grace caught her breath, and wriggled herself away from the nip of his
fingers.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, repeat what you said just now,--you went down to the cove
and saw----”

“Miss Diana’s clothes,--all put by on the rocks, just as she always
puts them out of the way when she’s going to bathe,” said Grace. “And
her bathing towel,--that hasn’t been used. And her shoes and stockings.
But Miss Diana’s gone!”

“Oh dear, oh dear!” moaned Mrs. May. “What dreadful, dreadful things
you are saying! What _are_ we to do? Oh, I feel so ill! My sweet
Diana!--my only, only precious child! Oh, James, James!”

And with her face suddenly working up into all sorts of lines and
creases as though it were an india-rubber mask pulled from behind, she
began to weep slowly and tricklingly, like a tap with a stoppage in its
middle.

“Be quiet!” shouted Mr. May fiercely. “You unnerve me with all
this snivelling!--and I won’t be unnerved! I’m going myself to the
cove--I’ll soon clear up this business! I don’t believe anything has
happened to Diana,--it’s a fine morning, and she’s probably enjoying
a swim,--she can swim like a fish--you know she can!--she _couldn’t_
drown!”

And with a half-suppressed oath he trotted out, all fuss and feathers,
like an angry turkey-cock, his whole mentality arrayed against fate and
circumstance, resolved to show that he was stronger than either.

By this time the ill news had spread, and the servants, the gardeners,
and a few of the villagers went running down to the cove. It was true
there had been a high tide that morning,--there was yet the glistening
trail of the loftiest wave on the rocks where the freshly tossed
seaweed clung. Safe out of all possible reach of the water, and neatly
piled together on a ledge of rock, were Diana’s simple garments, as
Grace had said,--with her hat, stockings and shoes and the unused
bathing towel. A veteran sailor had joined the group of onlookers, and
now, drawing his pipe from his mouth, he asked:

“What time did the leddy coom down ’ere?”

Mr. May had by now lost a little of his self-assertiveness and was
feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He was not a man of sentiment; though
he could often feign emotion successfully enough to deceive the very
elect. But just now he was, as he would himself have said, “very much
upset.” He knew that he ought to appear to his own servants and to the
villagers like a fond father distracted with anxiety and suspense, and
he was aware that his dumpy figure in tight white flannels did not
“dress” the part. He replied curtly:

“She was here a little before six, I’m told----”

“Ah, poor thing, then she’s been carried out of her depth!” said the
old “salt.” “There’s a main deal o’ suction with the sea in this ’ere
cove when full tide cooms in----”

“She’s an excellent swimmer,” said Mr. May, gazing at the sea in a
vaguely disappointed way, as though he thought each wave that swept
slowly in ought to bring Diana riding triumphantly on top of it.

“Ay, ay!--that may be!--but swimmin’ winnot allers save a woman what’s
light weight an’ ain’t got the muscles of a man. There’s a force o’
water ’ere sometimes as ’ud sweep a cart an’ ’oss off like a bit o’
straw! Ay, ay!--she’s gone for sure! an’ mebbe her poor body’ll never
come nigh--leastways not ’ere,--it might, lower down the coast.”

Here Grace Laurie, who was with the other servants watching, began to
cry bitterly.

“Oh, Miss Diana!” she sobbed. “She was so good and kind! Oh, poor, dear
Miss Diana!”

The old sailor patted her gently on the shoulder.

“Now don’t ye fret, don’t ye fret, my girl!” he said. “We’re all
swept off our feet sooner or later, when the big tide cooms in!--some
goes first an’ others last,--but ’tis all the same! Now you just pull
yerself together an’ take the poor leddy’s clothes back ’ome--an’ I an’
my mates will watch all along shore, an’ if we hears anythin’ or finds
anythin’----”

Mr. May coughed noisily.

“I am the father of the unfortunate lady,” he said stiffly. “I cannot
yet believe or realise this--this awful business; but anything you can
do will be suitably rewarded--of course----”

“Thanky, sir, thanky! I makes no doubt on’t!--but I’ll not worrit ye
with the hows an’ the whens in yer sorrer, for sorrer ye must ’ave, for
all ye looks so dry. What we ’ears we’ll let ye know an’ what we finds
too----”

And he subsided into silence, watching Grace, who, with choked sobs
and tears, took up Diana’s clothes as tenderly as if they were living
objects. Some of the other servants wept too, out of sympathy, and
Jonson, the butler, approached his master with solemn deference.

“Will you take my harm, sir?” he said.

Mr. May stared at him angrily,--then, remembering the circumstances,
assumed a melancholy and resigned air.

“No, Jonson, thank you!” he answered. “I will walk home alone.” Then,
after a pause. “You and Grace had better see to Mrs. May,--prepare her
a little--it will be a terrible blow to her----”

He turned away, and as he went, the group of sight-seers went also,
slowly dispersing and talking about the fatality in hushed voices, as
though they were afraid the sea would hear.

The old sailor remained behind, smoking and watching the waves.
Presently he saw something on the surface of the water that attracted
his attention, and he went to the edge of the breaking surf and waited
till the object was cast at his feet. It was a woman’s white canvas
bathing shoe.

“Ay! ’Tother’ll mebbe come in presently,” he said. “Poor soul!--they’se
washed off her feet,--she’s gone, for sure! I’ll keep this a bit--in
case ’tother comes.”

And shaking it free from the sand and dripping water, he put it in his
jacket pocket, and resumed his smoky meditations.

Meanwhile at Rose Lea the worst had been told. Mrs. May, weeping
profusely, and tottering like a sack too full to stand upright,
had been put to bed in a state bordering on collapse. Mr. May
occupied himself in sending off telegrams and writing letters; two
representatives of the local press called, asking for details of
the “Shocking Bathing Fatality,” which they secured, first from the
bereaved Mr. May himself, next from the butler, then from the maid,
then from the cook, and then from the kitchen-maid, “who ’ad been
the last to see the poor dear lady,” with the result that they had
a sufficiently garbled and highly-coloured account to make an almost
“sensational” column in their profoundly dull weekly newspaper.

The day wore on,--the house was invested with a strange silence;
Diana’s presence, Diana’s busy feet tripping here and there on
household business might have been considered trifling things; but the
fact that she was no longer in evidence created a curious, empty sense
of loneliness. Mrs. May remained in bed, moaning and weeping drearily,
with curtains drawn to shut out the aggressively brilliant sunshine;
and Mr. May began to take a mysterious pleasure in writing the letters
which told his friends in London and elsewhere of his “tragic and
irreparable loss.” He surprised himself by the beautiful sentences he
managed to compose. “Our only darling child, who was so beloved and
precious to us and to all who knew her”--was one. “I shall do my best
to cheer and support my dear wife, who is quite prostrated by this
awful calamity,” was another. “You know how dear she was and how deeply
cherished!” was a third. Sometimes, while he was writing, a small
twinge of conscience hurt the mental leather whereof he was largely
composed, and he realised his own hypocrisy. He knew he was not really
sorry for what had happened. And yet--memory pointed him backward with
something of reproach to the day when Diana, a pretty and winsome
child, with fair hair dancing about her in bright curls, had clambered
on his knee and caressed his ugly face, as though it were an adorable
object,--and to the after time, when as a girl in the fine bloom of
early youth, she had gone with him to her first ball, sweet and fresh
as the roses which adorned her simple white gown, and had charmed
everyone by her grace, gentleness and exquisite speaking voice, which
in its softly modulated tones, exercised a potent witchery on all who
heard it. True,--she had missed all her chances,--or rather all her
chances had somehow missed _her_; and she had grown not exactly old,
but _passée_--and--it was a pity she had not married!--but now!--now
all her failures and shortcomings were for ever at an end! She was
drowned;--the sea had wedded her and set its salty weed among her hair
in place of the never-granted orange-blossom. Mr. May shivered a little
at this thought,--after all, the sea was a cold and cruel grave for
his only child! And yet no tear of human or fatherly emotion generated
itself out of his dry brain to moisten his hard little eyes. He
stiffened himself in his chair and resumed the writing of his letters
which announced the “sudden and awful bereavement” which had befallen
him, and was charmed by the ease with which the tenderest expressions
concerning his dead daughter flowed from his pen.

And, after a long, sobbing, snoring sleep, Mrs. May woke up to the
practical every-day points of the situation and realised that there
could be no funeral. This was an awful blow! Unless--unless the
poor body of the drowned woman came ashore there could be no black
procession winding its doleful way through the flowering lanes of the
little Devonshire village, where it would have been picturesque to make
a “show” of mourning. So far, the sea had cheated the undertaker.

“I cannot even put a wreath upon my darling’s coffin!” she moaned. “And
she loved flowers!”

Fresh sobs and tears followed this new phase of misfortune. Mrs. May
was accustomed to find balm in Gilead for the death of any friend by
sending a wreath for the corpse,--and her husband had been heard to say
that if he died first he would be sure to have “a nasty wet wreath laid
on his chest before he was cold.”

Most of the burden and heat of the day fell on the maid, Grace Laurie,
who had to take cups of soup, glasses of wine, and other strengthening
refreshment to Mrs. May in her bedroom, and to see that Mr. May “had
everything he wanted,” which is the usual rule of a house sustained
by the presence of a man. She was an honest, warm-hearted girl, and
was genuinely sorry for the loss of Diana, far more so than were the
“bereaved” parents. Once, during the later afternoon, when it was
verging towards sunset, she went to Diana’s room and entered it half
trembling, moved by a sort of superstitious fear lest she should
perhaps see the spirit of its late occupant. The window was open, and
a rosy glow from the sky flushed the white muslin curtains with pale
pink, and gave deeper colour to a posy of flowers in a vase on the
dressing-table. Everything was scrupulously tidy; the servants had made
the bed early in the morning, before the fatality had become known, and
the whole room had an attractive air of peaceful expectation as though
confident of its owner’s return. Grace opened the wardrobe,--there
were all the few dresses Diana possessed, in their usual places,
with two or three simple country hats. Was there anything missing?
No sooner did this thought enter her head than Grace began to search
feverishly. She opened drawers and boxes and cupboards,--but, so far
as she knew, everything was as it always appeared to be. Yet she could
not be quite sure. She was not Diana’s own maid, except by occasional
service and favour,--her duties were, strictly speaking, limited to
personal attendance on Mrs. May. Diana was accustomed to do everything
for herself, arranging and altering her own clothes, and even making
them sometimes, so that Grace never quite knew what she really had
in the way of garments. But as she looked through all the things
hurriedly, they seemed to be just what Diana had brought with her
from Richmond for the summer, and no more. The clothes found on the
sea-shore Grace had herself placed on one chair, all folded in a sad
little heap together. She opened the small jewel-box that always stood
on the dressing-table, and recognised everything in it, even to the
wristlet-watch which Diana always left behind when she went to bathe;
apparently there was nothing missing. For one moment a sudden thought
had entered her head, that perhaps Diana had run away?--but she as
quickly realised the absurdity of such an idea!

“How stupid of me!” she said. “She had no cause to run away.”

She looked round once again, sadly and hopelessly,--then went out and
closed the door softly behind her. She felt there was a something
mysterious and suggestive in that empty room.

Towards dinner-time Mrs. May struggled out of bed and sat up in an
arm-chair, swathed in a voluminous dressing-gown.

“I cannot go down to dinner!” she wailed, to Grace. “The very idea of
it is terrible! Tell Mr. May I want to speak to him.”

Grace obeyed, and presently Mr. May came in obedience to the summons,
wearing a curious expression of solemn shamefacedness, as if he had
done a mean trick some time and had just been found out. His wife gazed
at him with red, watery eyes.

“James,” she said, quaveringly, “it’s _dreadful_ to have to remember
what you said last night about poor Diana!--oh, it’s dreadful!”

“What did I say?” he asked, nervously. “I--I forget----”

“You said--oh, dear, oh, dear! I hope God may forgive you!--you said
Diana was ‘in the way!’ You did!--Our child! Oh, James, James! Your
words haunt me! You said she was ‘_in the way_,’ and now she has been
taken from us! Oh, what a punishment for your wicked words! And you a
father! Oh, how shall we ever get over it!”

Mr. Polydore May sat down by his wife’s chair and looked foolish. He
knew he ought to say that it was indeed a dreadful thing, and that of
course they could never get over it,--but all the time he was perfectly
aware that the “getting over it” would be an easy matter for them both.
He had even already imagined it possible to secure a young and pretty
“companion housekeeper” to assist Mrs. May in the cares of domestic
management, and, when required, to wait upon James Polydore himself
with all that deferential docility which should be easy to command for
a suitable salary. That would be one way of “getting over it” quite
pleasantly,--but in reply to his wife’s melancholy adjuration, he
judged it wisest to be silent.

She went on, drearily:

“Fortunately I have one black dress; it belonged to my poor sister’s
set of mourning for her husband, but as she married again and went to
Australia within the year, it’s really as good as new, and she sold
it to me for a pound. And Grace can alter my bonnet; it’s black, but
it has a pink flower,--I must get a crape poppy instead, and black
gloves,--Oh, James!--and you wore white flannels this morning!--I’m
glad you’ve had the decency to change them!”

Mr. May had certainly changed them,--partly out of conviction that
such change was necessary, and partly because Jonson, the butler, had
most urgently suggested it. And he was now attired in his “regulation”
Sunday suit, which gave him the proper appearance of a respectable J.P.
in mourning. All day he had practised an air of pious resignation and
reserved sadness;--it was difficult to keep it up because his nature
was captious and irascible, especially when things happened that
were opposed to his personal convenience and comfort. His efforts
to look what he was not gave him the aspect of a Methodist minister
disappointed in the silver collection.

But perhaps on the whole, his wife was a greater humbug than he was.
She was one of those curious but not uncommon characters who imagine
themselves to be “full of feeling,” when truly they have no feeling
at all. Nobody could “gush” with more lamentable pathos than she over
a calamity occurring to any of her friends or acquaintances, but
no trouble had ever yet lessened her appetite, or deprived her of
sleep. Her one aim in life was to _seem_ all that was conventionally
correct,--to _seem_ religious, when she was not, to _seem_ sorry, when
she was not, to _seem_ glad, when she was not, to _seem_ kind, when
she was not, to _seem_ affectionate, when she was not. Her only real
passions were avarice, tuft-hunting and gluttony,--these were the
fundamental chords of her nature, hidden deep behind the fat, urbane
mask of flesh which presented itself as a woman to the world. There are
thousands like her, who, unfortunately, represent a large section of
the matronhood of Britain.

The news of Diana’s sudden and sad end soon spread among the old and
new friends and neighbours of the Polydore Mays, arousing languid
comment here and there, such as: “Poor woman! But, after all, there
wasn’t much for her in life--she was quite the old maid!” Or,--as
at Mr. May’s club: “Best thing that could have happened for old
Polydore!--he can’t trot her round any more, and he’ll be able to play
the man-about-town more successfully!”

Nobody gave a thought to the quiet virtues of the industrious, patient,
unaffected daughter who had devoted herself to the duty of caring for
and attending upon her utterly selfish parents,--and certainly nobody
ever remembered that her spinster-hood was the result of a too lofty
and faithful conception of love, or that her nature was in very truth
an exceptionally sweet and gracious one, and her intelligence of a much
higher order than is granted to the average female. In that particular
section of human beings among whom she had lived and moved, her career
was considered useless because she had failed to secure a mate and
settle down to bear the burden and brunt of his passions and his will.
And so, as she had never displayed any striking talent, or thrust
herself forward in any capacity, or shown any marked characteristic,
and as the world is over full of women, she was merely one of the
superfluous, who, not being missed, was soon forgotten.




CHAPTER V


On that same eminently tragic afternoon when Mr. Polydore May found
it necessary to change his white flannels so soon after putting them
on, and his wife had to think seriously of a crape poppy for her
bonnet, two ladies sat in the charmingly arranged drawing-room of a
particularly charming flat in Mayfair enjoying their afternoon tea.
One was a graceful little woman arrayed in a captivating tea-gown; the
other, a thin, rather worn-looking creature with a pale face and bright
hair tucked closely away under a not very becoming felt hat, garbed
in a severely plain costume of dark navy serge. The butterfly person
in the tea-gown was Miss Sophy Lansing, a noted Suffragette, and the
authoress of a brilliantly witty satire entitled “Adam and His Apple,”
which, it was rumoured, had made even the Dean of St. Paul’s laugh. The
tired-featured woman with the air of an intellectual governess out of
place, was no other than the victim of the morning’s disastrous “death
by drowning,”--Diana May. Dead in Devonshire, she was alive in London,
and her friend, Sophy Lansing, was sitting beside her, clasping her
hands in a flutter of delight, surprise and amusement all commingled.

“You dear!” she exclaimed. “How ever did you manage to get away? I
never was so astonished! Or so pleased! When I got your note by express
messenger, I could hardly believe my eyes! What time did you arrive in
town?”

“About midday,” replied Diana. “I felt comfortably drowned by that
time,--and I lunched at the Stores----”

“Drowned!” cried Sophy. “My dear, what _do_ you mean?”

Diana released her hands from her friend’s eager grasp and took off her
hat. There was a gleam of whimsical humour in her eyes.

“One moment, and I’ll explain everything,” she said. “But, first of
all, let me tell you why I sent you a message in advance, instead of
coming to you direct. It’s because I’m obliged for the present to be
like a travelling royalty, _incog._ Your servants must not know my
real name,--to them and to everybody else who sees me here, I’m Miss
Graham,--not Miss May. Miss May is dead! As Peggotty says in ‘David
Copperfield,’ she’s ‘drowndead.’ ‘Drowndead’ this very morning!”

She laughed; Sophy Lansing looked as she felt, utterly bewildered.

“You are a positive enigma, Diana!” she said. “Of course when I got
your note I understood you had some reason or other for wishing to be
_incog._, and I told my maids that I expected a friend to stay with me,
a Miss Graham, and that she would come this afternoon,--so _that’s_ all
right! But about the drowning business----”

“You’ll see it mentioned, no doubt, in the papers to-morrow,” said
Diana. “Under various headings: ‘Bathing Fatality’ or ‘Sad End of a
Lady.’ And you’ll probably get a black-bordered letter from Ma, or Pa,
or both!”

“Diana!” exclaimed Sophy, vehemently. “You are too provoking! Tell me
all about it!--straight!”

“There’s not so very much to tell,” answered Diana, in her sweet,
mellow accents, thrilled at the moment by a note of sadness. “Only that
last night I had the final disillusion of my life--I found that my
father and mother did not really love me----”

“Love you!” interrupted Sophy, heatedly. “You dear goose! There’s no
such thing as love in their composition!”

“Maybe not,” said Diana. “But if there is, they’ve none to spare for
_me_. You see, dear Sophy, it’s all the fault of my silly conceit,--I
really thought I was useful, even necessary to the old people, and that
they cared for me, but when I heard my father say most emphatically
that I was ‘in the way,’ and my mother rather agreed to that, I made up
my mind to relieve them of my presence. Which I have done. For ever!”

“For ever!” echoed Sophy. “My poor dear Diana----”

“No, I’m not a poor dear Diana,” she answered, smiling,--“I’m a dead
and gone Diana! You will see me in the leading obituary columns of the
newspapers to-morrow!”

“But how----”

“The how and the when and the why are thus!” and Diana played with the
silken tassels of the girdle which belted in the dainty chiffon and
lace of her friend’s tea-gown. “This very morning, as ever was, I went
for my usual morning dip in the sea at a cove not a quarter of a mile
away from the house. I knew that at a certain hour there would be a
high tide, which, of course, on any other day I would have avoided. I
went to the spot, dressed in two of everything----”

“Two of everything?” Sophy murmured bewilderedly.

“Yes, you pretty little thick-head! Two of everything! Don’t you
see? Being as thin as a clothes’-prop, that was easy for me. Two
‘combys,’--two chemises, two petticoats, two serge gowns,--having no
figure I wear no corsets, so I didn’t have two of those. Two pairs of
knickers, two pairs of stockings,--one pair of shoes on, another pair
_off_ and carried secretly under my bathing gown along with my felt
hat, as to start with I wore a black straw one. Then, when I got to
the cove, I disrobed myself of one set of garments, and put them with
my straw hat and one pair of shoes all in an orderly heap on a rock
out of the way of the water, as any sensible person preparing to bathe
would do. Then I waited for the high tide. It came swiftly and surely,
and soon filled the cove,--big waves came with it, rolling in with
a splendid dash and roar, and at the proper psychological moment, I
threw in all my bathing things, as far out to sea as I could from the
summit of the rock where I stood--I saw them whirled round and round
in the whelming flood!--in the whelming flood, Sophy!--where my dear
Pa and Ma believe I also have been whelmed! Then, when they had nearly
disappeared in the hollow of a receding mass of water, I put on my
felt hat, and, completely clothed in my one set of decent garments, I
quietly walked away.”

“Walked away? Where to?”

“Not to the nearest railway station, you may be sure!” replied Diana.
“I might have been known there and traced. I’m a good walker, and
it was quite early--only a little after seven,--so I struck across
some fields and went inland for about six or eight miles. Then I came
upon a little out-of-the-way station connected with a branch line to
London--happily a train was just due, and I took it. I had saved five
pounds on the housekeeping last month,--I had intended to give them
back to my mother--but--considering everything--I felt I might take
that small sum for myself without so much as a prick of conscience! So
that’s my story--and here I am!”

“And here you’ll stay!” said Sophy eagerly. “Not a soul shall know who
you are----”

“I’ll stay for two or three days, but not longer,” said Diana. “I want
to get abroad as quickly as possible. And I’m afraid I shall have to
ask you to lend me a little money----”

“I’ll lend or give you anything you want,” interrupted Sophy quickly.
“Surely you know that!”

“Surely I know that you are one of the kindest-hearted little women in
the world!” said Diana. “And your wealthy old bachelor uncle never did
a wiser thing than when he left you two thousand a year! Why you remain
single I can never understand!”

“That’s because you are a sentimental goose!” declared Sophy. “If
you were worldly wise you would see that it’s just that two thousand
that does it! The men who propose to me--and there are a good few of
them!--want the two thousand first, and me afterwards! Or rather, let
us say, some of them would be glad of the two thousand without me
altogether! All the nonsense in poetry books about love and dove, and
sigh and die, and moon and spoon doesn’t count! I’ve lived till I’m
thirty-five and I’ve never met a man yet who was worth a trickle of
a tear! They are all sensualists and money-grubbers,--polygamous as
monkeys!--and the only thing to be done with them is to make them work
to keep the world going, though even that seems little use sometimes.”

“Sophy dear, are you becoming a pessimist?” asked Diana, half smiling.
“Surely it is a beautiful world!”

“Yes--it’s beautiful in a natural way--but the artificiality of human
life in it is depressing and disgusting! Don’t let us talk of it!--tell
me why you are going abroad? What are your plans?”

Diana took a neat leather case from her pocket and drew out of it a
folded slip of paper.

“_You_ sent me that!” she said.

“That advertisement!” she exclaimed. “The man who wants ‘Any woman
alone in the world, without claims on her time or her affections’? Oh,
Diana! You don’t mean it! You’re not really going on such a wild-goose
chase?”

“What harm can it do?” said Diana, quietly. “I’m old enough to
take care of myself. And I fulfil all the requirements. I am a
woman of mature years--I’m courageous and determined, and I have a
fair knowledge of modern science. I’m well educated, especially in
‘languages and literature,’ thanks to my solitary studies,--and as I’ve
nothing to look forward to in the world I’m not afraid to take risks.
It really seems the very sort of thing for me! At any rate I can but go
and present myself, as suggested, ‘personally and alone’ to this Dr.
Dimitrius at Geneva,--and if he turns out an impostor, well!--Geneva
isn’t the worst of places, and I’m sure I could find something to do
as a teacher of music, or a ‘companion housekeeper.’ In any case I’m
determined to go there and investigate things for myself,--and whatever
money you are good enough to lend me, dear Sophy, be sure I’ll never
rest till I pay you back every penny!”

Sophy threw an embracing arm round her and kissed her.

“If you never paid me back a farthing I shouldn’t mind!” she said,
laughing. “Dear Di, I’m not one of those ‘friends’ who measure love by
money! Money and the passion for acquiring it make more than half the
hypocrisy, cruelty and selfishness of the age. But all the same I’m not
quite sure that I approve of this plan of yours----”

“My dear Sophy, why should you _dis_approve? Just think of it! Here am
I, past forty, without any attraction whatsoever, no looks, no fortune,
and nothing to look forward to in life except perhaps the chance of
travel and adventure. I’m fond of studies in modern science, and I
believe I’ve read every book of note on all the new discoveries,--and
here’s a man who plainly announces in his advertisement that he needs
the assistance of a woman like me. There can be no harm done by my
going to see him. Very likely by the time I get to Geneva he’ll be what
the servants call ‘suited.’ Then I’ll try something else. For now, as
long as I live I’m alone in the world and must stand on my own.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ll never go back to the old folks?” asked
Sophy.

“How can I, when I’m dead!” laughed Diana. “No, no! It would be too
awful for them to see me turning up again just when I had ceased to be
in the way!”

Sophy frowned.

“Selfish old brutes!” she said.

Diana demurred.

“No, don’t say that!” she expostulated. “You must bear in mind that
I’ve been a terrible disappointment to them. They wanted me to marry
well,--for money rather than love--and when I wasted my youth for
love’s sake, of course they were angry. They thought me a fool,--and
really, so I was! I don’t think there _can_ be anything more foolish
than to sacrifice the best part of one’s life for any man. He is never
worth it,--he never understands or appreciates it. To him women are all
alike,--one as good or as bad as t’other. The mistake _we_ make is when
we fail to treat him as he treats _us_! He is a creature who from very
babyhood upwards should be whipped rather than spoilt. That is why he
is frequently more faithful to his mistress than his wife. He’s afraid
of the one, but he can bully the other.”

Sophy clapped her hands.

“Well said, Di! You begin to agree with me at last! Once upon a time
you were all for believing in the chivalrous thought and tenderness of
men----”

“I _wanted_ to believe,” interrupted Diana, with a half smile--“I can’t
honestly say I did!”

“No one can who studies life ever so superficially,” declared Sophy.
“Particularly the ordinary matrimonial life. A man selects a woman
entirely for selfish purposes--she may be beautiful and he wishes to
possess her beauty--or rich, and he wants the use of her money,--or
well-connected, and he seeks to push himself through her relations;
or a good cook and housekeeper and he wants his appetite well catered
for. As for children--well!--sometimes he wants them and more often
he doesn’t!--I remember what an awful fuss there was in the house
of an unfortunate friend of mine who had twins. Her husband was
furious. When he was told of the ‘interesting event’ he used the most
unedifying language. ‘Two more mouths to feed!’ he groaned. ‘Good
God, what a visitation!’ From the way he went on, you’d have thought
that he had had no share at all in the business! He didn’t mind
hurting his wife’s feelings or saying hard things to her,--not he!
And it’s the same story everywhere you go. A few months of delightful
courtship,--then marriage--then incessant routine of housekeeping,
illness and child-bearing--and afterwards, when the children grow up,
the long dull days of resigned monotony; toothlessness, which is only
partially remedied by modern dentistry, and an end of everything vital
or pleasurable! Except, of course, unless you kick over the traces and
become a ‘fast’ matron with your weather-eye open on all men,--but
that kind of woman is always such bad form. Marriage is not worth the
trouble it brings,--even children are not unmixed blessings. I’ve
never seen any I could not do without!--in fact”--and she laughed--“a
bachelor woman with two thousand a year doesn’t want a man to help her
to spend it!”

“Quite true,” said Diana, with a slight sigh. “But I haven’t got two
thousand a year, or anything a year at all!”

“Never mind!” and Sophy looked wisely confident--“you’ll have all you
want and more! Yes!--something tells me you are going to make a great
success----”

“Sophy, Sophy! In what?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” and the vivacious little lady jumped up from her
chair and shook out her filmy skirts and floating ribbons. “But I
feel it! It is one of those ‘waves’--what do you call them?--‘etheric
vibrations!’ Yes, that’s it! Don’t you feel those sort of things ever?”

Diana had also risen, and as she stood upright, very still, there was a
curious look in her face of expectancy and wonder.

“Yes,” she answered, slowly, “I felt one just now!”

Sophy laughed merrily.

“Of course! I imparted it to you! and you’re going to be a wonderful
creature!--I’m sure of it! Your poor brain,--so long atrophied by
the domestic considerations of Pa and Ma, is about to expand!--to
breathe!--to move!--to act! Yes, Diana!--Think of it! Cinderella shall
go to the Prince’s Ball!”

Her bright laughter pealed out again, and Diana laughed too.

“Come and see your room,” went on Sophy. “You’re here at any rate for
a day or two, and I’ll keep you as secretly and preciously as a saint
in a shrine. You’ve no luggage? Of course, I forgot!--I’ll lend you
a nightie!--and you must buy a lot of clothes to-morrow and a box to
pack them in. It won’t do for you to go abroad without any luggage. And
I’ll help you choose your garments, Di!--you must have something really
becoming!--something _not_ after the taste of ‘Pa’ or ‘Ma!’”

“Am I to make a conquest of Dr. Féodor Dimitrius?” asked Diana,
playfully. “One would think you had that sort of thing in view!”

“One never knows!” said Sophy, shaking a warning finger at her. “Dr.
Dimitrius may be hideous--or he may be fascinating. And whether hideous
or fascinating, he may be--amorous! Most men are, at moments!--and in
such moments they’ll make love to anything feminine.”

“Not anything feminine of my age,” said Diana, calmly. “He distinctly
advertises for a woman of ‘mature’ years.”

“That may be his cunning!” and Sophy looked mysterious. “If we are to
believe history, Cleopatra was fifty when she enchanted Anthony.”

“Dear old Egyptian days!” sighed Diana, with a whimsical uplifting of
her eyebrows. “Would I had lived in them! With a long plaited black wig
and darkened lashes, I too, might have found an Anthony!”

“Well, dress _does_ make a difference,” said Sophy seriously. “That is,
of course, if you know where to get it made, and how to put it on, and
don’t bundle it round you in a gathered balloon like ‘Ma!’ _What_ a
sight that woman does look, to be sure!”

“Poor mother! I tried to make her clothes sit on her,” murmured Diana,
regretfully. “But they wouldn’t!”

“Of course they wouldn’t! They simply _couldn’t_! Now take Mrs.
Ross-Percival,--a real old, old harridan!--the terror of her grown-up
daughters, who are always watching her lest her wig of young curls
should come off,--she gets herself up in such a style that I once heard
your father--an easily duped old thing!--say he thought her ‘the most
beautiful woman in London!’ And it was all the dress, with a big hat,
cosmetics and a complexion veil!”

Diana laughed.

“Pa’s a very susceptible little man!” she said tolerantly. “He has
often amused me very much with his ‘amourettes.’ Sometimes it’s Mrs.
Ross-Percival,--then he becomes suddenly violently juvenile and pays
his _devoirs_ to a girl of seventeen; I think he’d die straight off if
he couldn’t believe himself still capable of conquering all hearts! And
he’ll be able to get on in that line much better now that I’m drowned.
I was ‘in the way.’”

“Silly old noodle!” said Sophy. “He’d better not come near _me_!--I
should tell him a few plain truths of himself which he would not like!”

“Oh, he wouldn’t mind!” Diana assured her. “To begin with, he wouldn’t
listen, and if he did, he would grin that funny little grin of his and
say you were ‘over-wrought.’ That’s his great word! You can make no
impression on Pa if he doesn’t want to be impressed. He has absolutely
no feelings--I mean real _feelings_,--he has only just ‘impulses,’ of
anger or pleasure, such as an animal has--and he doesn’t attempt to
control either.”

They had by this time left the drawing-room, and were standing together
in a charming little bedroom, furnished all in white and rose-colour.

“This is my ‘visitor’s room,’” said Sophy. ”And you can occupy it as
long as you like. And I’ll bring you one of my Paris tea-gowns to slip
on for dinner,--it’s lovely and you’ll look sweet!”

Diana smiled.

“I! Dear Sophy, you expect miracles!”

But Sophy was not so far wrong. That evening, Diana, arrayed in a
gracefully flowing garment of cunningly interwoven soft shades, varying
from the hue of Neapolitan violets to palest turquoise, and wearing
her really beautiful bright hair artistically coiled on the top of her
well-shaped head, was a very different looking Diana to the weary, worn
and angular woman in severely cut navy serge who had presented the
appearance of an out-of-place governess but a few hours before. If she
could not be called young or beautiful, she was distinctly attractive,
and Sophy Lansing was delighted.

“My dear, you pay for dressing!” she said, enthusiastically. “And--you
mark my words!--you don’t look ‘mature’ enough for that Dr. Dimitrius!”




CHAPTER VI


There are certain people who take a bland and solemn pleasure in the
details of death and disaster,--who are glad to assume an air of
what they call “Christian resignation,” and who delight in funerals
and black-edged note-paper. Regular church-goers are very frequently
most particular about this last outward sign and token of the heart’s
incurable sorrow; some choose a narrow black edge as being less
obtrusive but more subtle,--others a broad, as emblematic of utter
hopelessness. The present writer once happened on a cynical stationer,
who had his own fixed ideas on this particular department of mourning
which was so closely connected with his trade.

“The broader the edge, the less the grief,” he assured me. “Just as I
say of widows, the longer the veil, the sooner the second wedding,--and
the more wreaths there are on a hearse, the fewer the friends of the
deceased. That’s my experience.”

But no one should accept these remarks as anything but the cynical
view of a small tradesman whose opinion of his clients was somewhat
embittered.

A letter with a black border which was neither broad nor narrow,
but discreetly medium, appeared among Sophy Lansing’s daily pile of
correspondence the morning after Diana’s arrival at her flat, and,
recognising the handwriting on the envelope, she at once selected
it from the rest, and ran into her friend’s room, waving it aloft
triumphantly.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “From your poor, afflicted Pa! To announce the
sad news!”

Diana, fresh from her bath, her hair hanging about her and the faint
pink of her cheeks contrasting becomingly with the pale blue of her
dressing-gown, looked up rather wistfully.

“Do open it!” she said. “I’m sure it will be a beautiful letter! Pa
can express himself quite eloquently when he thinks it worth while. I
remember he wrote a most charming ‘gush’ of sympathy to a woman who had
lost her husband suddenly,--she was a titled person, and Pa worships
titles,--and when he had posted it he said: ‘Thank God that’s done
with! It’s bad enough to write a letter of condolence at all, but when
you have to express sorrow for the death of an old fool who is better
out of the world than in it, it’s a positive curse!’”

She laughed, adding: “I know he isn’t really sorry for _my_ supposed
‘death’; if the real, bare, brutal truth were told, he’s glad!”

Sophy Lansing paused in the act of opening the letter.

“Diana!” she exclaimed in a tone of thrilling indignation. “If he’s
such an old brute as that----”

“Oh, no, he isn’t really an old brute!” Diana averred, gently. “He’s
just a very ordinary sort of man. Lots of people pretend to be sorry
for the deaths of their friends and relatives when they’re not; and
half the mourning in the world is sheer hypocrisy! Pa’s a bit of a
coward, too--he hates the very thought of death, and when some person
he has known commits this last indiscretion of dying, he forgets it as
quickly as possible. I don’t blame him, I’m sure. Everyone can’t feel
deeply--some people can’t feel at all.”

Here Sophy opened the letter and glanced at it. Presently she looked up.

“Shall I read it to you?” she asked.

Diana nodded. With a small, preparatory cough, which sounded rather
like a suppressed giggle, Sophy thereupon read the following effusion:

 “Dear Miss Lansing,

 “I hardly know how to break to you the news of the sudden and awful
 tragedy which has wrecked the happiness of our lives! Our beloved only
 child, our darling daughter Diana is no more! I am aware what a shock
 this will be to your feelings, for you loved her as a friend, and I
 wish any words of mine could soften the blow. But I am too stunned
 myself with grief and horror to write more than just suffices to tell
 you of the fatal calamity. The poor child was overtaken by a high
 tide while bathing this morning, and was evidently carried out of
 her depth. For some hours I have waited and hoped against hope that
 perhaps, as she was a good swimmer, she might have reached some other
 part of the shore, but alas! I hear from persons familiar with this
 coast that the swirl of water in a high tide is so strong and often
 so erratic that it is doubtful whether even her poor body will ever
 be found! A sailor has just called here with a melancholy relic--her
 poor little bathing shoes! He picked up one this morning, soon after
 the accident, he says, and the other has lately been washed ashore.
 I cannot go on writing,--my heart is too full! My poor wife is quite
 beside herself with sorrow. We can only place our trust in God that He
 will, with time, help us to find consolation for our irreparable loss.
 We shall not forget your affection for our darling, and shall hope to
 send you her little wristlet watch as a souvenir.

      “Yours, in the deepest affliction,
          “James Polydore May.”

Diana had listened with close and almost fascinated attention.

“Of course it isn’t true,” she said, when the reading was finished. “It
can’t be true.”

“What can’t be true?” queried Sophy, puckering her well-arched eyebrows.

“All that!” and Diana waved her hand expressively. “Pa’s not a bit
‘stunned with grief and horror!’ You couldn’t fancy him in such
a condition if you tried! And mother is not in the least ‘beside
herself.’ She’s probably ordering her mourning. Why, they are already
parcelling out my trinkets, and before I’ve been ‘drowned’ twenty-four
hours they’re thinking of sending you my wristlet watch by way of an
‘In Memoriam.’ I hope they will,--I should love you to have it! But
people who are ‘stunned with grief and horror’ and ‘beside themselves’
are not able to make all these little arrangements so quickly! Ah,
Sophy! An hour ago I was actually fancying that perhaps I had behaved
cruelly,--there was a stupid, lingering sentiment in my mind that
suggested the possible suffering and despair of my father and mother at
having lost me!--but after that letter I am reassured! I know I have
done the right thing.”

Sophy looked at her with a smile.

“You are a curious creature!” she said. “Surely Pa expresses himself
very touchingly?”

“Too touchingly by half!” answered Diana. “Had he really felt the grief
he professes to feel, he could not have written to you or to any other
friend for several days about it----”

“Perhaps,” interrupted Sophy, “he thought it would be in the papers,
and that unless he wrote it might be taken for someone else----”

“He _knew_ it would be in the papers,” said Diana, “and naturally
wished to let his acquaintances know that he, and no other man of
the name of May, is the bereaved father of the domestic melodrama.
Well!”--and she shook back her hair over her shoulders--“it’s
finished! I am dead!--and ‘born again,’ as the Scripture saith,--at
rather a mature age!--but I may yet turn out worth regenerating!--who
knows?”

She laughed, and turned to the dressing-table to complete her toilette.
Sophy put affectionate arms about her.

“You are a dear, strange, clever, lovable thing, anyway!” she said.
“But really, I’ve had quite a sleepless night thinking about that
Dr. Dimitrius! He may be a secret investigator or a spy, and if you
go to him he may want you to do all sorts of dreadful, even criminal
things!----”

“But I shouldn’t do them!” laughed Diana. “Sophy, have you _no_
confidence in my mental balance?”

“_I_ have, but some people wouldn’t,” Sophy replied. “They would
say that a woman of your age ought to know better than to leave a
comfortable home where you had only the housekeeping to do, and give
up the chance of an ample income at your parents’ death, just to go
away on a wild-goose chase after new adventures, and all because you
imagined you weren’t loved! Oh, dear! Love is only ‘a springe to catch
woodcocks!’ as the venerable Polonius so wisely remarks in _Hamlet_. I
know a sneering cynic who says that women are always ‘asking for love!’”

Diana paused in the act of brushing out a long bright ripple of hair.
Her eyes grew sombre--almost tragic.

“So they are!” she said. “They ask for it because they know God meant
them to have it! They know they were created for lover-love, wife-love,
mother-love,--just think what life means to them when cheated out
of all three through the selfishness and treachery of man! Their
blood gets poisoned--their thoughts share the bitterness of their
blood--they are no longer real women; they become abnormal and of no
sex,--they shriek with the Suffragettes, and put on trousers to go
‘on the land’ with the men--they do anything and everything to force
men’s attention--forgetting that efforts made on the masculine line
completely fail in attraction for the male sex. It is the sensual and
physical side of a woman that subjugates a man,--therefore when she is
past her youth she has little or no ‘chance,’ as they call it. If she
happens to be brainless, she turns into a sour, grizzling, tea-drinking
nonentity and talks nothing but scandal and diseases,--if she is
intellectually brilliant, well!--sometimes she ‘rounds’ on the dogs
that have bayed her into solitude, and, like a wounded animal, springs
to her revenge!”

The words came impetuously from her lips, uttered in that thrillingly
sweet voice which was her special gift and charm.

Sophy’s bright eyes opened in sheer astonishment.

“Why, Diana!” she exclaimed. “You talk like a tragedy queen!”

Diana shrugged her shoulders lightly.

“Do I?” and she slowly resumed the brushing of her hair. “There’s
nothing in what I say but the distinctly obvious. Love is the necessity
of life to a woman, and when that fails----”

“Diana, Diana!” interrupted Sophy, shaking a warning finger at
her--“you talk of love as if it really were the ‘ideal’ thing described
by poets and romancists, when it’s only the sugar-paper to attract
and kill the flies! We women begin life by believing in it; but every
married friend of mine tells me that all the ‘honey’ of the ‘moon’
is finished in a couple of months, never again to be found in the
_pot-au-feu_ of matrimony! Out of a thousand men taken at random
perhaps one will really _love_, in the best and finest sense; the rest
are only swayed by animal passion such as is felt by the wolf, the
bear, or even the rabbit!--I really think the rabbit is the most exact
prototype! How many wives one knows whose husbands not only neglect
them, but are downright rude to them!--Why, my dear, your notion of
‘love’ is a dream, beyond all realisation!”

“Possibly!” and Diana went on with her hair-brushing. “But whatever
it is, or whatever I imagined it to be, I don’t want it now. I
want--revenge!”

“Revenge?” Sophy gave a little start of surprise. “You? You, always
gentle, patient and adaptable! _You_ want ‘revenge’? On whom? On what?”

“On all and everything that has set me apart and alone as I am!” Diana
answered. “Perhaps science can show me a way to it! If so, I shall not
have lived in vain!”

“Diana!” exclaimed her friend. “One would think you were going to bring
microbes in a bottle, or something awful of that sort, and kill people!”

“Not I!” and Diana laughed quite merrily. “Killing is a common
thing--and vulgar. But--I have strange dreams!” She twisted up her
hair dexterously and coiled it prettily round her small, compact head.
“Yes!--I have strange dreams!” she went on. “In these times we are apt
to forget the conquests possible to the brain,--we let fools over-ride
us when we could far more easily over-ride _them_. In my ‘salad days,’
which lasted far too long, I ‘asked for love’--now I ask for vengeance!
I gave all my heart and soul to a man whose only god was Self,--and
I got nothing back for my faith and truth. So I have a long score to
settle!--and I shall try to have some of my spent joys returned to
me--with heavy interest!”

“But how?” inquired Sophy, perplexed. “You don’t expect to get any
‘spent joys’ out of this Dr. Dimitrius, do you?”

Diana smiled. “No!”

“And if he proves to be a charlatan, as he probably will, you say
you’ll go as companion or governess or housekeeper to somebody out in
Geneva--well, where are you going to find any joy in such a life as
that?”

Diana looked at her, still smiling.

“My dear, I don’t expect anything! Who was it that said: ‘Blessed are
they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed’? The
chief point I have now to dwell upon is, that I am to all intents and
purposes _Dead!_ and, being dead, I’m free!--almost as free as if my
spirit had really escaped from its mortal prison. Really, there’s
something quite vitalising in the situation!--just now I feel ready for
anything. I shouldn’t mind trying an airship voyage to the moon!”

“With Dr. Dimitrius?” suggested Sophy, laughing.

“Well, I don’t know anything about Dr. Dimitrius yet,” answered
Diana. “Judging from his advertisement I imagine he is some wealthy
‘crank’ who fancies himself a scientist. There are any amount of
them wandering about the world at the present time. I shall soon be
able to tell whether he’s a humbug or an honest man,--whether he’s
mad or sane--meanwhile, dear little Sophy, let’s have breakfast and
then go shopping. We’ve done with Pa and Ma--at any rate _I_ have,
bless their dear old hearts!--we know they’re ‘stunned with grief and
horror’ and ‘beside themselves’ and as happy in their ‘misery’ as they
ever were in their lives. I can see my mother getting fitted for her
mourning, and ‘Pa’ arguing with the hatter as to the proper width of
his hat-band, and all the neighbours calling, and proffering ‘sympathy’
when they don’t care a scrap! It’s a curious little humbug of a world,
Sophy!--but for the remainder of my time I’ll try to make it of use to
me. Only you’ll have to lend me some money to begin upon!”

“Any amount you want!” said Sophy, enthusiastically--“You must have
proper clothes to travel in!”

“I _must_,” agreed Diana, with humorously dramatic emphasis. “I haven’t
had any since I was ‘withdrawn’ from the matrimonial market for lack
of bidders. Mother used to spend hundreds on me so long as there was
any hope--I had the prettiest frocks, the daintiest hats,--and in these
I ‘radiated’ at all the various shows,--Ranelagh, Hurlingham, Henley,
Ascot, Goodwood,--how sick I used to be of it! But when these little
crowsfeet round my eyes began to come”--and she touched her temples
expressively--“then poor, disappointed Ma drew in the purse-strings.
She found that very ‘young’ hats didn’t suit me--delicate sky-pinks
and blues made me look sallow,--so she and Pa decided on giving me an
‘allowance’--too meagre to stand the cost of anything but the plainest
garments--and--so, here I am! Pa says ‘only very young people should
wear white’--but the vain old boy got himself up in white flannels the
other day to play tennis and thought he looked splendid! But what’s the
odds, so long as he’s happy!”

She laughed and turned to the mirror to complete her toilette, and
in less than an hour’s time she and Sophy Lansing had finished their
breakfast and were out together in Bond Street, exploring the mysteries
of the newest Aladdin’s palace of elegant garments, where the perfect
taste and deft fingers of practised Parisian fitters soon supplied all
that was needed to suit Diana’s immediate requirements. At one very
noted establishment, she slipped into a “model” gown of the finest
navy serge, of a design and cut so admirable that the _couturier_
could hardly be said to flatter when he declared that “Madame looked a
princess in it.”

“Do princesses always look well?” she asked, with a quaint little
uplifting of her eyebrows.

The great French tailor waved his hands expressively.

“Ah, Madame! It is a figure of speech!”

Diana laughed,--but she purchased the costume, Sophy whispering
mysteriously in her ear: “Let us take it with us in the automobile! One
never knows!--they might change it! And you’ll never get anything to
suit you more perfectly.”

Miss Lansing was worldly-wise; she had not gained the reputation
of being one of the best-dressed women in London without learning
many little ins and outs of “model” gowns which are hidden from the
profane. Many and many a time had she been “taken in,” on this deep
question,--many a “model” had she chosen, leaving it to be sent home,
and on receipt had found it to be only a clever “copy” which, on
being tried on, had proved a misfit. And well she knew that complaint
was useless, as the tailor or modiste who supplied the goods would
surely prove a veritable Ananias in swearing that she had received the
“model,” and the model only. On this occasion she had her way, and,
despite the deprecating appeal of the _couturier_ that he might be
allowed to send it, the becoming costume was packed and placed safely
in the automobile, and she and Diana drove off with it.

“You never _could_ look better in anything!” declared Sophy. “Promise
me you’ll wear it when you make your first call on Dr. Dimitrius!”

“But, my dear, it may be too much for him!” laughed Diana. “He wants ‘a
courageous and determined woman of mature years,’--and so charming a
Paris costume may not ‘dress’ the part!”

“Never mind whether it does or not,” said Sophy. “I can’t believe he
wants an old frump! You may not believe me, Di, but you look perfectly
fascinating in that gown--almost young again!”

Diana’s blue eyes clouded with a touch of sadness. She sighed a little.

“Almost!--not quite!” she answered. “But--‘dress does make a
difference!’--there’s no doubt of it! These last few years I’m not
ashamed to say I’ve longed for pretty clothes--I suppose it’s the dying
spirit of youth trying to take a last caper! And now, with all these
vanity purchases, I am horribly in your debt. Dear Sophy, how shall I
ever repay you?”

“Don’t know and don’t care!” said Sophy, recklessly. “I’m not a
grasping creditor. And something tells me you are going to be very
rich!--perhaps this man Dimitrius is a millionaire and wants a clever
woman for his wife--a sort of Madame Curie to help him with his
experiments----”

“Then I shall not suit him,” interrupted Diana, “for I never intend
to be wife to any man. First of all, I’m too old--secondly, if I were
young again, I wouldn’t. It isn’t worth while!”

“But didn’t you say you wanted to be loved?” queried Sophy.

“Does marriage always fulfil that need?” counter-queried Diana.

They exchanged glances--smiled--shrugged shoulders and dropped the
conversation.

Two days later Diana left England for Geneva.




CHAPTER VII


Geneva is one of those many towns in Switzerland which give the
impression of neat commonplace in the midst of romance,--the same
impression which is conveyed by a housewife’s laying out of domestic
linen in the centre of a beautiful garden. The streets are clean and
regular,--the houses well-built and characterless, sometimes breaking
forth into “villas” of fantastic appearance and adornment, which
display an entire absence of architectural knowledge or taste,--the
shops are filled with such trifles as are likely to appeal to tourists,
but have little to offer of original production that cannot be
purchased more satisfactorily elsewhere, and the watches that glitter
in the chief jeweller’s window on the Quai des Bergues are nothing
better than one sees in the similar windows of Bond Street or Regent
Street. There is nothing indeed remarkable about Geneva itself beyond
its historic associations and memories of famous men, such as Calvin
and Rousseau;--its chief glory is gained from its natural surroundings
of blue lake and encircling chain of mountains, with Mont Blanc
towering up in the distance,

    “In a wreath of mist,
    By the sunlight kiss’d,
    And a diadem of snow.”

The suburbs are far more attractive than the town; for, beyond
the radius of the streets and the hateful, incessant noise of the
electric trams, there are many charming residences set among richly
wooded grounds and brilliant parterres of flowers, where the most
fastidious lover of loveliness might find satisfaction for the eyes
and rest for the mind, especially on the road towards Mont Salève and
Mornex. Here one sees dazzling mists streaming off the slopes of the
mountains,--exquisite tints firing the sky at sunrise and sunset, and
mirrored in the infinite blue of the lake,--and even in the heats of
summer, a delicious breeze blows over the fresh green fields with
the cold scent of the Alpine snow in its breath. And here on a fresh
beautiful autumn morning Diana May found herself walking swiftly along
with light and eager steps, her whole being alive with interested
anticipation. Never had she felt so well; health bounded in her pulse
and sparkled in her eyes, and the happy sense of perfect freedom gave
to every movement of her thin, supple figure, that elasticity and grace
which are supposed to be the special dower of extreme youth, though,
as a matter of fact, youth is often ungainly in action and cumbersome
in build. She had stayed two days and nights at a quiet little hotel
in Geneva on arrival, in order to rest well and thoroughly, after
her journey from England before presenting herself at the Château
Fragonard, the residence of the mysterious Dr. Dimitrius; and she
had made a few casual yet careful inquiries as to the Château and
its owner. Nobody seemed to know more than that “Monsieur le Docteur
Dimitrius” was a rich man, and that his Château had been built for him
by a celebrated French architect who had spared neither labour nor
cost. He was understood to be a scientist, very deeply absorbed in
difficult matters of research,--he was unmarried and lived alone with
his mother. Just now he had so much to do that he was advertising in
all the papers for “an intellectual elderly lady” to assist him. Diana
was indebted for this last “personal note” to a chatty bookseller in
the Rue du Mont Blanc. She smiled as she listened, turning over some
of the cheap fiction on his counter.

“He is not suited yet?” she inquired.

“Ah, no, Madame! It is not likely he will be suited! For what lady will
admit herself to be sufficiently elderly? Ah, no? It is not possible!”

Later on, she learned that the Château Fragonard was situated some
distance out of Geneva, and well off the high road.

“Madame wishes to see the grounds?” inquired the cheery driver of
a little carriage plying for hire. “It would be necessary to ask
permission. But they are very fine!--Ah, wonderful!--as fine as those
of Rothschild! And if one were not admitted, it is easy to take a boat,
and view them from the lake! The lawns slope to the water’s edge.”

“Exquisite!” murmured Diana to herself. “It will be worth while trying
to remain in such a paradise!”

And she questioned the willingly communicative _cocher_ as to how long
it might take to walk to the Château?

“About an hour,” he replied. “A pleasant walk, too, Madame! One sees
the lake and mountains nearly all the way.”

This information decided her as to her plans. She knew that the
eccentric wording of the Dimitrius advertisement required any applicant
to present herself between six and eight in the morning, which was an
ideal time for a walk in the bracing, brilliant Alpine air. So she
determined to go on foot the very next day; and before she parted with
the friendly driver, she had ascertained the exact position of the
Château, and the easiest and quickest way to get there.

And now,--having risen with the first peep of dawn, and attired herself
in that becoming navy serge “model,” which her astute friend Sophy had
borne triumphantly out of the French tailor’s emporium, she was on her
way to the scene of her proposed adventure. She walked at a light,
rapid pace--the morning was bright and cool, almost cold when the wind
blew downward from the mountains, and she was delightfully conscious
of that wonderful exhilaration and ease given to the whole physical
frame by a clear atmosphere, purified by the constant presence of ice
and snow. As she moved along in happiest mood, she thought of many
things;--she was beginning to be amazed, as well as charmed, by the
various changes which had, within a week, shaken her lately monotonous
life into brilliant little patterns like those in a kaleidoscope. The
web and woof of Circumstance was no longer all dull grey, like the
colour her father had judged most suitable for her now that she was no
longer young,--threads of rose and sky blue had found their hopeful way
into the loom. Her days of housekeeping, checking tradesmen’s bills and
flower-arranging seemed a very long way off; it was hardly credible to
her mind that but a short time ago she had been responsible for the
ordering of her parents’ lunches and dinners and the general management
of the summer “change” at Rose Lea on the coast of Devon,--that fatal
coast where she had been so cruelly drowned! Before leaving London,
she had seen a few casual paragraphs in the newspapers concerning this
disaster, headed “Bathing Fatality”--“Sad End of a Lady”--or “Drowned
while Bathing,” but, naturally, being a nobody, she had left no gap
in society,--she was only one of many needless women. And it was an
altogether new and aspiring Diana May that found herself alive on this
glorious morning in Switzerland; not the resigned, patient, orderly
“old maid” with a taste for Jacobean embroidery and a wholesome dislike
of the “snap-snap-snarl” humours of her father.

“I never seem to have been my own real self till now!” she said
inwardly. “And now I hardly realise that I have a father and mother
at all! What a tyrannical bogy I have made of my ‘duty’ to them! And
‘love’ is another bogy!”

She glanced at her watch,--one of Sophy Lansing’s numerous dainty
trifles--“Keep it in exchange,” Sophy had said, “for yours which your
bereaved parents are going to send me as an ‘In Memoriam’!” It was
ten minutes to seven. Looking about her to take note of her bearings,
she saw on the left-hand side a deep bend in the road, which curved
towards a fine gateway of wrought iron, surmounted by a curious
device representing two crossed spears springing from the centre of
a star,--and she knew she had arrived at her destination. Her heart
beat a little more quickly as she approached the gateway--there was
no keeper’s lodge, so she pulled at a handle which dimly suggested
the possibility of a bell. There was no audible response,--but to
all appearance the gates noiselessly unbarred themselves, and slowly
opened. She entered at once without hesitation, and they as slowly
closed behind her. She was in the grounds of the Château Fragonard.
Immense borders of heliotrope in full bloom fringed either side of the
carriage drive where she stood, and the mere lifting of her eyes showed
masses of flowering shrubs and finely-grown trees bending their shadowy
branches over velvety stretches of rich green grass, or opening in
leafy archways here and there to disclose enchanting glimpses of blue
water or dazzling peaks of far-off snow. She would have been glad to
linger among such lovely surroundings, for she had a keen comprehension
of and insight into the beauty of Nature and all the joys it offers to
a devout and discerning spirit, but she bethought herself that if Dr.
Dimitrius was anything of an exact or punctilious person, he would
expect an applicant to be rather before than after time. A silver-toned
chime, striking slowly and musically on the sunlit silence, rang seven
o’clock as she reached the Château, which looked like a miniature
palace of Greek design, and was surrounded with a broad white marble
loggia, supported by finely fluted Ionic columns, between two of which
on each side a fountain played. But Diana had scarcely time to look at
anything while quickly ascending the short flight of steps leading to
the door of entrance; she saw a bell and was in haste to ring it. Her
summons was answered at once by a negro servant dressed in unassuming
dark livery.

“Dr. Dimitrius?” she queried.

The negro touched his lips with an expressive movement signifying that
he was dumb,--but he was not deaf, for he nodded an affirmative to her
inquiry, and by a civil gesture invited her to enter. In another few
seconds she found herself in a spacious library--a finely proportioned
room, apparently running the full length of the house, with large
French windows at both ends, commanding magnificent views.

Left alone for several minutes, she moved about half timidly, half
boldly, looking here and there--at the great globes, celestial and
terrestrial, which occupied one corner,--at the long telescope on its
stand ready for use and pointed out to the heavens--and especially at a
curious instrument of fine steel set on a block of crystal, which swung
slowly up and down incessantly, striking off an infinitesimal spark of
fire as it moved.

“Some clock-work thing,” she said half aloud. “But where is its
mechanism?”

“Ah, where!” echoed a deep, rather pleasant voice close at her ear.
“That, as Hamlet remarked, is the question!”

She started and turned quickly with a flush of colour mounting to her
brows,--a man of slight build and medium height stood beside her.

“You are Dr. Dimitrius?” she said.

He smiled. “Even so! I am he! And you----?”

Swiftly she glanced him over. He was not at all an alarming, weird,
or extraordinary-looking personage. Young?--yes, surely young for a
man--not above forty; and very personable, if intelligent features,
fine eyes and a good figure can make a man agreeable to outward view.
And yet there was something about him more than mere appearance,--she
could not tell what it was, and just then she had no time to consider.
She rushed at once into the business of her errand.

“My name is May,--Diana May,” she said, conscious of nervousness
in speaking, but mastering herself by degrees. “I have come from
England in answer to your advertisement. I am interested--very deeply
interested--in matters of modern science, and I have gained some little
knowledge through a good deal of personal, though quite unguided
study. I am most anxious to be useful--and I am not afraid to take any
risks----”

She broke off, a little confused under the steady scrutiny of Dr.
Dimitrius’s eyes. He placed an easy chair by the nearest window. “Pray
sit down!” he said, with a courteous gesture,--then, as she obeyed:
“You have walked here from Geneva?”

“Yes.”

“When did you arrive from England?”

“Two days ago.”

“Have you stated to anyone the object of your journey?”

“Only to one person--an intimate woman friend who lent me the money for
my travelling expenses.”

“I see!” And Dimitrius smiled benevolently. “You have not explained
yourself or your intentions to any good Genevese hotel proprietor?”

She looked up in quick surprise.

“No, indeed!”

“Wise woman!” Here Dimitrius drew up a chair opposite to her and
sat down. “My experience has occasionally shown me that lone ladies
arriving in a strange town and strange hotel, throw themselves, so to
speak, on the bosom of the book-keeper or the landlady, and to her
impart their whole business. It is a mistake!--an error of confiding
innocence--but it is often made. You have _not_ made it,--and that is
well! You have never married?”

Diana coloured--then answered with gentleness:

“No. I am what is called a spinster,--an old maid.”

“The first is by far the prettiest name,” said Dimitrius. “It evokes a
charming vision of olden time when women sat at their spinning wheels,
each one waiting for Faust, _à la Marguerite_, unaware of the Devil
behind him! ‘Old maid’ is a coarse English term,--there _are_ coarse
English terms! and much as I adore England and the English, I entirely
disapprove of their ‘horseplay’ on women! No doubt you know what I
mean?”

“I think I do,” replied Diana, slowly. “It is that when a woman is
neither a man’s bound slave nor his purchased toy, she is turned into a
jest.”

“Precisely! You have expressed it perfectly!” and his keen eyes flashed
over her comprehensively. “But let us keep to business. You are a
spinster, and I presume you are, in the terms of my advertisement,
‘alone in the world, without claims on your time or your affections.’
Is that so?”

Quietly she answered:

“That is so.”

“Now you will remember I asked for ‘a courageous and determined woman
of mature years.’ You do not look very ‘mature’----”

“I am past forty,” said Diana.

“A frank, but unnecessary admission,” he answered, smiling. “You should
never admit to more years than your appearance gives you. However, I
am glad you told me, as it better suits my purpose. And you consider
yourself ‘courageous and determined’?”

She looked at him straightly.

“I think I am--I hope I am,” she said. “I have had many disillusions
and have lost all I once hoped to win; so that I can honestly say even
death would not matter to me, as I have nothing to live for. Except the
love of Nature and its beauty----”

“And its wisdom and mastery of all things,” finished Dimitrius. “And to
feel that unless we match its wisdom with our will to be instructed,
and its mastery with our obedience and worship, we ‘shall surely die’!”

His eyes flashed upon her with a curious expression, and just for a
passing moment she felt a little afraid of him. He went on, speaking
with deliberate emphasis:

“Yes,--if you are indeed a student of Nature, you surely know _that_!
And you know also that the greatest, deepest, most amazing, and most
enlightening discoveries made in science during the last thirty years
or so are merely the result of cautious and sometimes casual probing of
one or two of this vast Nature’s smaller cells of active intelligence.
We have done something,--but how much remains to do!”

He paused,--and Diana gazed at him questioningly. He smiled as he met
her eager and interested look.

“We shall have plenty of time to talk of these matters,” he said--“if I
decide that you can be useful to me. What languages do you know besides
your own?”

“French, Italian and a little Russian,” she answered. “The two first
quite fluently,--Russian I have studied only quite lately--and I find
it rather difficult----”

“Being a Russian myself I can perhaps make it easy for you,” said
Dimitrius, kindly. “To study such a language without a teacher shows
considerable ambition and energy on your part.”

She flushed a little at the mere suggestion of praise and sat silent.

“I presume you have quite understood, Miss May,” he presently resumed,
in a more formal tone, “that I require the services of an assistant
for one year at least--possibly two years. If I engage you, you must
sign an agreement with me to that effect. Another very special point
is that of confidence. Nothing that you do, see, or hear while working
under my instructions is ever to pass your lips. You must maintain the
most inviolable secrecy, and when once you are in this house you must
neither write letters nor receive them. If you are, as I suggested in
my advertisement, ‘alone in the world, without any claims on your time
or your affections,’ you will not find this a hardship. My experiments
in chemistry may or may not give such results as I hope for, but while
I am engaged upon them I want no imitative bunglers attempting to get
on the same line. Therefore I will run no risks of even the smallest
hint escaping as to the nature of my work.”

Diana bent her head in assent.

“I understand,” she said--“And I am quite willing to agree to your
rules. I should only wish to write one letter, and that I can do from
the hotel,--just to return the money my friend lent me for my expenses.
And I should ask you to advance me that sum out of whatever salary you
offer. Then I need give no further account of myself. Sophy,--that is
my friend--would write to acknowledge receipt of the money, and then
our correspondence would end.”

“This would not vex or worry you?” inquired Dimitrius.

She smiled. “I am past being vexed or worried at anything!” she said.
“Life is just a mere ‘going on’ for me now, with thankfulness to find
even a moment of interest in it as I go!”

Dimitrius rose from his chair and walked up and down, his hands
clasped behind his back. She watched him in fascinated attention, with
something of suspense and fear lest after all he should decide against
her. She noted the supple poise of his athletic figure, clad in a
well-cut, easy summer suit of white flannels,--his dark, compact head,
carried with a certain expression of haughtiness, and last, but not
least, his hands, which in their present careless attitude nevertheless
expressed both power and refinement.

Suddenly he wheeled sharply round and stood, facing her.

“I think you will do,” he said,--and her heart gave a quick throb of
relief which, unconsciously to herself, suffused her pale face with a
flush of happiness--“I think I shall find in you obedience, care, and
loyalty. But there is yet an important point to consider,--do you, in
your turn, think you can put up with _me_? I am very masterful, not to
say obstinate; I will have no ‘scamp’ work,--I am often very impatient,
and I can be extremely disagreeable. You must take all this well into
your consideration, for I am perfectly honest with you when I say I am
not easy to serve. And remember!”--here he drew a few steps closer to
her and looked her full in the eyes--“the experiments on which I am
engaged are highly dangerous,--and, as I stated in my advertisement,
you must not be ‘afraid to take risks,’--for if you agree to assist me
in the testing of certain problems in chemistry, it may cost you your
very life!”

She smiled.

“It’s very kind of you to prepare me for all the difficulties and
dangers of my way,” she said. “And I thank you! But I have no fear.
There is really nothing to be afraid of,--one can but die once. If you
will take me, I’ll do my faithful best to obey your instructions in
every particular, and so far as is humanly possible, you shall have
nothing to complain of.”

He still bent his eyes searchingly upon her.

“You have a good nerve?”

“I think so.”

“You must be sure of that! My laboratory is not a place for hesitation,
qualms, or terrors,” he said. “The most amazing manifestations occur
there sometimes----”

“I have said I am not afraid,” interrupted Diana, with a touch of
pride. “If you doubt my word, let me go,--but if you are disposed to
engage me, please accept me at my own valuation.”

He laughed, and his face lightened with kindliness and humour.

“I like that!” he said. “I see you have some spirit! Good! Now, to
business. I have made up my mind that you will suit me,--and you have
also apparently made up your mind that _I_ shall suit _you_. Very well.
Your salary with me will be a thousand a year----”

Diana uttered a little cry.

“A thou--a thousand a year!” she ejaculated. “Oh, you mean a thousand
francs?”

“No, I don’t. I mean a thousand good British pounds sterling,--the
risks you will run in working with me are quite worth that. You will
have your own suite of rooms and your own special hours of leisure for
private reading and study, and all your meals will be supplied, though
we should like you to share them with us at our table, if you have no
objection. And when you are not at work, or otherwise engaged, I should
be personally very much obliged if you would be kind and companionable
to my mother.”

Diana could scarcely speak; she was overwhelmed by what she considered
the munificence and generosity of his offer.

“You are too good,” she faltered. “You wish to give me more than my
abilities merit----”

“I must be the best judge of that,” he said, and moving to a table desk
in the centre of the room he opened a drawer and took out a paper.
“Will you come here and read this? And then sign it?”

She went to his side, and taking the paper from his hand, read it
carefully through. It was an agreement, simply and briefly worded,
which bound her as confidential assistant and private secretary
to Féodor Dimitrius for the time of one year positively, with the
understanding that this period should be extended to two years, if
agreeable to both parties. Without a moment’s hesitation, she took
up a pen, dipped it in ink, and signed it in a clear and very firmly
characteristic way.

“A good signature!” commented Dimitrius. “If handwriting expresses
anything, you should be possessed of a strong will and a good brain.
Have you ever had occasion to exercise either?”

Diana thought a moment--then laughed.

“Yes!--in a policy of repression!”

A humorous sparkle in his eyes responded to her remark.

“I understand! Well, now”--and he put away the signed agreement in a
drawer of his desk and locked it--“you must begin to obey me at once!
You will first come and have some breakfast, and I’ll introduce you
to my mother. Next, you will return to your hotel in Geneva, pay your
bill, and remove your luggage. I can show you a short cut back to the
town, through these grounds and by the border of the lake. By the way,
how much do you owe your friend in England?”

“About a hundred pounds.”

“Here is an English bank-note for that sum,” said Dimitrius, taking it
from a roll of paper money in his desk. “Send it to her in a registered
letter. And here is an extra fifty pound note for any immediate
expenses,--you will understand you have drawn this money in advance of
your salary. Now when you get to your hotel, have your luggage taken to
the railway station and left in the Salle des Bagages,--they will give
you a number for it. Then when all this is done, walk quietly back here
by the same private path through the grounds which you will presently
become acquainted with, and I will send a man I sometimes employ from
Mornex, to fetch your belongings here. In this way the good gossiping
folk of Geneva will be unable to state what has become of you, or where
you have chosen to go. You follow me?”

“Quite!” answered Diana--“And I shall obey you in every particular.”

“Good! Now come and see my mother.”

He showed her into an apartment situated on the other side of the
entrance hall--a beautiful room, lightly and elegantly furnished,
where, at a tempting-looking breakfast table, spread with snowy linen,
delicate china and glittering silver, sat one of the most picturesque
old ladies possible to imagine. She rose as her son and Diana entered
and advanced to meet them with a charming grace--her tall slight
figure, snow-white hair, and gentle, delicate face, lit up with the
tenderest of blue eyes, making an atmosphere of attractive influence
around her as she moved.

“Mother,” said Dimitrius, “I have at last found the lady who is willing
to assist me in my work--here she is. She has come from England--let
me introduce her. Miss Diana May,--Madame Dimitrius.”

“You are very welcome,”--and Madame Dimitrius held out both hands to
Diana, with an expressive kindness which went straight to the solitary
woman’s heart. “It is indeed a relief to me to know that my son is
satisfied! He has such great ideas!--such wonderful schemes!--alas, I
cannot follow or comprehend them!--I am not clever! You have walked
from Geneva?--and no breakfast? My dear, sit down,--the coffee is just
made.”

And in two or three minutes Diana found herself chatting away at
perfect ease, with two of the most intelligent and companionable
persons she had ever met,--so that the restraint under which she had
suffered for years gradually relaxed, and her own natural wit and
vivacity began to sparkle with a brightness it had never known since
her choleric father and adipose mother had “sat upon her” once and
for all, as a matrimonial failure. Madame Dimitrius encouraged her to
talk, and every now and then she caught the dark, almost sombre eyes
of Dimitrius himself fixed upon her musingly, so that occasionally the
old familiar sense of “wonder” arose in her,--wonder as to how all
her new circumstances would arrange themselves,--what her work would
be--and what might result from the whole strange adventure. But when,
after breakfast, she was shown the beautiful “suite” of apartments
destined for her occupation, with windows commanding a glorious view
of the lake and the Mont Blanc chain of mountains, and furnished with
every imaginable comfort and luxury, she was amazed and bewildered at
the extraordinary good luck which had befallen her, and said so openly
without the slightest hesitation. Madame Dimitrius seemed amused at the
frankness of her admiration and delight.

“This is nothing for us to do,” she said, kindly. “You will have
difficult and intricate work and much fatigue of brain; you will need
repose and relaxation in your own apartments, and we have made them as
comfortable as we can. There are plenty of books, as you see,--and the
piano is a ‘bijou grand,’ very sweet in tone. Do you play?”

“A little,” Diana admitted.

“Play me something now!”

Obediently she sat down, and her fingers wandered as of themselves
into a lovely “prélude” of Chopin’s--a tangled maze of delicate tones
which crossed and recrossed each other like the silken flowers of fine
tapestry. The instrument she played on was delicious in touch and
quality, and she became so absorbed in the pleasure of playing that she
almost forgot her listeners. When she stopped she looked up, and saw
Dimitrius watching her.

“Excellent! You have a rare gift!” he said. “You play like an artist
and _thinker_.”

She coloured with a kind of confusion,--she had seldom or never been
praised for any accomplishment she possessed. Madame Dimitrius smiled
at her, with tears in her eyes.

“Such music takes me back to my youth,” she said. “All the old days of
hope and promise! ... Ah! ... you will play to me often?”

“Whenever you like,” answered Diana, with a thrill of tenderness in her
always sweet voice,--she was beginning to feel an affection for this
charming and dignified old lady, who had not outlived sentiment so far
as to be unmoved by the delicate sorrows of Chopin. “You have only to
ask me.”

“And now,” put in Dimitrius, “as you know where you will live, you must
go back to Geneva and get your luggage, in the way I told you. We’ll
go together through the grounds,--it’s half an hour’s walk instead of
nearly two hours by the road.”

“It did not seem like two hours this morning,” said Diana.

“No, I daresay not. You were eager to get here, and walking in
Switzerland is always more delight than fatigue. But it is actually a
two hours’ walk. Our private way is easier and prettier.”

“_Au revoir!_” smiled Madame Dimitrius. “You, Féodor, will be in to
luncheon,--and you, Miss May?----”

“I give her leave of absence till the afternoon,” said Dimitrius. “She
must return in time for that English consoler of trouble--tea!” He
laughed, and with a light parting salute to his mother, preceded Diana
by a few steps to show the way. She paused a moment with a look half
shy, half wistful at the kindly Madame Dimitrius.

“Will you try to like me?” she said, softly. “Somehow, I have missed
being liked! But I don’t think I’m really a disagreeable person!”

Madame took her gently by both hands and kissed her.

“Have courage, my dear!” she said. “I like you already! You will be a
help to my son,--and I feel that you will be patient with him! That
will be enough to win more than my liking--my love!”

With a grateful look and smile Diana nodded a brief adieu, and followed
Dimitrius, who was already in the garden waiting for her.

“Women must always have the last word!” he said, with a good-humoured
touch of irony. “And even when they are enemies, they kiss!”

She raised her eyes frankly to his.

“That’s true!” she answered. “I’ve seen a lot of it! But your mother
and I could never be enemies, and I--well, I am grateful for even a
‘show’ of liking.”

He looked surprised.

“Have you had so little?” he queried. “And you care for it?”

“Does not everyone care for it?”

“No. For example, I do not. I have lived too long to care. I know what
love or liking generally mean--love especially. It means a certain
amount of pussy-cat comfort for one’s self. Now, though all my efforts
are centred on comfort in the way of perfect health and continuous
enjoyment of life for this ‘Self’ of ours, I do not care for the mere
pussy-cat pleasure of being fondled to see if I will purr. I have no
desire to be a purring animal.”

Diana laughed--a gay, sweet laugh that rang out as clearly and
youthfully as a girl’s. He gave her a quick, astonished glance.

“I amuse you?” he inquired, with a slight touch of irritation.

“Yes, indeed! But don’t be vexed because I laugh! You--you mustn’t
imagine that anybody wants to make you ‘purr!’ _I_ don’t! I’d rather
you growled, like a bear!” She laughed again. “We shall get on
splendidly together,--I know we shall!”

He walked a few paces in silence.

“I think you are younger than you profess to be,” he said, at last.

“I wish I were!” she answered, fervently. “Alas, alas! it’s no use
wishing. I cannot ‘go like a crab, backwards.’ Though just now I feel
like a mere kiddie, ready to run all over these exquisite gardens and
look at everything, and find out all the prettiest nooks and corners.
What a beautiful place this is!--and how fortunate I am to have found
favour in your eyes! It will be perfect happiness for me just to live
here!”

Dimitrius looked pleased.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said--and taking a key from his pocket, he
handed it to her. “Here we are coming to the border of the lake, and
you can go on alone. Follow the private path till you come to a gate
which this key will open--then turn to the left, up a little winding
flight of steps, under trees--this will bring you out to the high road.
I suppose you know the way to your hotel when you are once in the town?”

“Yes,--and I shall know my way back again to the Château this
afternoon,” she assured him. “It’s kind of you to have come thus far
with me. You are breaking your morning’s work.”

He smiled. “My morning’s work can wait,” he said. “In fact, most of my
work _must_ wait--till you come!”

With these words he raised his hat in courteous salutation and left
her, turning back through his grounds--while she went on her way
swiftly and alone.




CHAPTER VIII


Arrived at her hotel, Diana gave notice that she was leaving that
afternoon. Then she packed up her one portmanteau and sent it by a
porter to the station, with instructions to deposit it in the “Salle
des Bagages,” to await her there. He carried out this order, and
brought the printed number entitling her to claim her belongings at her
convenience.

“Madame is perhaps going to Vevy or to Montreux?” he suggested,
cheerfully. “The journey is pleasanter by boat than by the train.”

“No doubt!--yes, of course!--I am quite sure it is!” murmured the
astute Diana with an abstracted smile, giving him a much larger “tip”
than he expected, which caused him to snatch off his cap and stand with
uncovered head, as in the presence of a queen. “But I have not made up
my mind where I shall go first. Perhaps to Martigny--perhaps only to
Lausanne. I am travelling for my own amusement.”

_“Ah, oui! Je comprends! Bonne chance, Madame!_” and the porter backed
reverently away from the wonderful English lady who had given him
five francs, when he had only hoped for one,--and left her to her own
devices. Thereupon she went to her room, locked the door, and wrote the
following letter to Sophy Lansing:

 “Dearest Sophy,

 “Please find enclosed, as business people say, an English bank-note
 for a hundred pounds, which I think clears me of my debt to you in
 the way of money, though not of gratitude. By my ‘paying up’ so
 soon, you will judge that I have ‘fallen on my feet’--and that I have
 accepted ‘service’ under Dr. Dimitrius. What is more, and what will
 please you most, is that I am entirely satisfied with my situation,
 and am likely to be better off and happier than I have been for many
 years. The Doctor does not appear to be at all an ‘eccentric,’--he is
 evidently a _bona-fide_ scientist, engaged, as he tells me, in working
 out difficult problems of chemistry, in which I hope and believe I may
 be of some use to him by attending to smaller matters of detail only;
 he has a most beautiful place on the outskirts of Geneva, in which I
 have been allotted a charming suite of rooms with the loveliest view
 of the Alps from the windows,--and last, by no means least, he has a
 perfectly delightful mother, a sweet old lady with snow-white hair and
 the ‘grand manner,’ who has captivated both my heart and imagination
 at once. So you may realise how fortunate I am! Everything is signed
 and settled; and there is only one stipulation Dr. Dimitrius makes,
 and this is, that while I am working with him, I may neither write
 nor receive letters. Now I have no one I really care to write to
 except you; moreover, it is impossible for me to write to anyone, as
 I am supposed to be dead! So it all fits in very well as it should.
 You, of course, know nothing about me, save that I was unfortunately
 drowned!--and when you see ‘Pa’ and ‘Ma’ clothed in their parental
 mourning, you will, I hope, manage to shed a few friendly tears with
 them over my sudden departure from this world. (N.B. A scrap of
 freshly cut onion secreted in your handkerchief would do the trick!)
 I confess I should have liked to know your impression of my bereaved
 parents when you see them for the first time since my ‘death!’--but
 I must wait. Meanwhile, you can be quite easy in your mind about
 me, for I consider myself most fortunate. I have a splendid
 salary--a thousand a year!--just think of it!--a thousand Pounds,
 not Francs!--and a perfectly enchanting home, with every comfort and
 luxury. I am indeed ‘dead’ as the poor solitary woman who devoted her
 soul to the service of ‘Pa’ and ‘Ma’; a new Diana May has sprung from
 the ashes of the old spinster!--it is exactly as if I had really died
 and been born again! All the world seems new; I breathe the air of a
 delicious and intelligent freedom such as I have never known. I shall
 think of you very often, you bright, kind, clever little Sophy!--and
 if I get the chance, I will now and then send you a few flowers,--or
 a book,--merely as a hint to you that all is well. But, in any case,
 whether you receive such a hint or not, have no misgivings or fears
 in regard to me;--for years I haven’t been so happy or so well off
 as I am now. I’m more than thankful that my lonely hours of study
 have not been entirely wasted, and that what I have learned may
 prove of some use at last. Now, dear Sophy, _au revoir_! Your good
 wishes for me are being fulfilled; my ‘poor brain so long atrophied
 by domestic considerations of Pa and Ma,’ as you put it, is actually
 expanding!--and who knows?--your prophecy may come true--Cinderella
 may yet go to the Prince’s Ball! If I have cause to resign my present
 post, I will write to you at once; but not till then. This you will
 understand. I have registered this letter so that really there is
 no need for you to acknowledge its receipt,--the post-office may be
 relied upon to deliver it to you safely. And I think it is perhaps
 best you should not write.

 “Much love and grateful thanks for all your help and kindness to

      “Your ‘departed’ friend,
          “Diana May.”

This letter, with its bank-note enclosure, she sealed; and then, taking
a leisurely walk along the Rue du Mont Blanc to the General Post
Office, she patiently filled in the various formal items for the act of
registration which the Swiss postal officials make so overwhelmingly
tiresome and important, and finally got her packet safely despatched.
This done, she felt as if the last link binding her to her former life
was severed. Gone was “Pa”; gone was “Ma!”--gone were the few faded
sentiments she had half unconsciously cherished concerning the man she
had once loved and who had heartlessly “jilted” her,--gone, too, were
a number of sad and solitary years,--gone, as if they had been a few
unimportant numerals wiped off a slate,--and theirs was the strangest
“going” of all. For she had lived through those years,--most surely
she had lived through them,--yet now it did not seem as if they had
ever been part of her existence. They had suddenly become a blank. They
counted for nothing except the recollection of long hours of study.
Something new and vital touched her inner consciousness,--a happiness,
a lightness, a fresh breathing-in of strength and self-reliance. From
the Rue du Mont Blanc she walked to the Pont, and stood there, gazing
for some time at the ravishing view that bridge affords of the lake
and mountains. The sun shone warmly with that mellow golden light
peculiar to early autumn, and the water was blue as a perfect sapphire,
flecked by tiny occasional ripples of silver, like sudden flashing
reflections of sunbeams in a mirror; one or two pleasure-boats with
picturesque “lateen” sails looked like great sea-birds slowly skimming
along on one uplifted wing. The scene was indescribably lovely, and a
keen throb of pure joy pulsated through her whole being, moving her to
devout thankfulness for simply being alive, and able to comprehend such
beauty.

“If I had been really and truly drowned I think it would have been a
pity!” she thought, whimsically. “Not on account of any grief it might
have caused--for I have no one to grieve for me,--but solely on my own
part, for I should have been senseless, sightless, and tucked away
in the earth, instead of being here in the blessed sunshine! No!--I
shouldn’t have been tucked away in the earth, unless they had found
my body and had a first-class funeral with Ma’s usual wreath lying on
the coffin,--I should have been dashed about in the sea, and eaten by
the fishes. Not half so pleasant as standing on the Pont du Mont Blanc
and looking at the snowy line of the Alps! When people commit suicide
they don’t _think_, poor souls!--they don’t realise that there’s more
happiness to be got out of the daily sunshine than either money, food,
houses, or friends can ever give! And one can live on very little, if
one tries.” Here she laughed. “Though I shall have no chance to try!
A thousand a year for a single woman, with a lovely home and ‘board’
thrown in, does not imply much effort in managing to keep body and
soul together! Of course my work may be both puzzling and strenuous--I
wonder what it will really be?”

And she started again on her old crusade of “wonder.” Yet she did
not find anything particular to wonder at in the appearance, manner,
or conversation of Dr. Dimitrius. She had always “wondered” at
stupidity,--but never at intelligence. Dimitrius spoke intelligently
and looked intelligent; he did not “pose” as a wizard or a seer, or
a prophet. And she felt sure that his mother would not limit her
conversation to the various items of domestic business; she could not
fancy her as becoming excited over a recipe for jam, or the pattern
for a blouse. This variety of subjects were the conversational
stock-in-trade of English suburban misses and matrons whose talk
on all occasions is little more than a luke-warm trickle of words
which mean nothing. There would be some intellectual stimulus in the
Dimitrius household,--of that she felt convinced. But in what branch of
scientific research, or what problem of chemistry her services would be
required, she could not, with all her capacity for wondering, form any
idea.

She walked leisurely back to the hotel, looking at the shops on
her way,--at the little carved wooden bears carrying pin-cushions,
pen-trays and pipe-racks,--at the innumerable clocks, with chimes
and without,--at the “souvenirs” of pressed and mounted _edelweiss_,
inscribed with tender mottoes suitable for lovers to send to one
another in absence,--and before one window full of these she paused,
smiling.

“What nonsense it all is!” she said to herself. “I used to keep the
faded petals of any little flower I chanced to see in _his_ buttonhole,
and put them away in envelopes marked with his initials and the
date!--what a fool I was!--as great a fool as that sublime donkey,
Juliette Drouet, who raved over her ‘little man’, Victor Hugo! And the
silly girls who send this _edelweiss_ from Switzerland to the men they
are in love with, ought just to see what those men do with it! _That_
would cure them! Like the Professor who totalled up his butcher’s bill
on the back of one of Charlotte Bronté’s fervent letters, nine out of
ten of them are likely to use it as a ‘wedge’ to keep a window or door
from rattling!”

Amused with her thoughts, she went on, reached her hotel and had
luncheon, after which she paid her bill. “Madame is leaving us?” said
the cheery _dame du comptoir_, speaking very voluble French. “Alas, we
are sorry her stay is so short! Madame goes on to Montreux, no doubt?”

“Madame” smiled at the amiable woman’s friendly inquisitiveness.

“No,” she answered.--“And yet--perhaps--yes! I am taking a long holiday
and hope to see all the prettiest places in Switzerland!”

“Ah, there is much that is grand--beautiful!” declared the
proprietress. “You will occupy much time! You will perhaps return here
again?”

“Oh, yes! That is very likely!” replied Diana, with a flagrant
assumption of candour. “I have been very comfortable here.”

“Madame is too good to say so! We are charmed! The luggage has gone to
the station? Yes? That is well! _Au revoir_, Madame!”

And with many gracious nods and smiles and repeated _au revoirs_, Diana
escaped at last, and went towards the station, solely for the benefit
of the hotel people, servants included, who stood at the doorway
watching her departure. But once out of their sight she turned rapidly
down a side street which she had taken note of in the morning, and soon
found her way to the close little alley under trees with the steps
which led to the border of the lake, but which was barred to strangers
and interlopers by an iron gate through which she had already passed,
and of which she had the key. There was no difficulty in unlocking it
and locking it again behind her, and she drew a long breath of relief
and satisfaction when she found herself once more in the grounds of the
Château Fragonard.

“There!” she said half aloud--“I have shut away the old world!--welcome
to the new! I’m ready for anything now--life or death!--anything but
the old jog-trot, loveless days of monotonous commonplace,--there
will be something different here. Loveless I shall always be--but I’m
beginning to think there’s another way of happiness than love!--though
old Thomas à Kempis says: ‘Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more
pleasant, nothing fuller and better in Heaven and earth’; but he meant
the love of God, not the love of man.”

She grew serious and absorbed in thought, yet not so entirely
abstracted as to be unconscious of the beauty of the gardens through
which she was walking,--the well-kept lawns, the beds and borders of
flowers,--the graceful pergolas of climbing roses, and the shady paths
which went winding in and out through shrubberies and under trees,
here and there affording glimpses of the lake, glittering as with
silver and blue. Presently at a turn in one of these paths she had a
view of the front of the Château Fragonard, with its fountains in full
play on either side, and was enchanted with the classic purity of its
architectural design, which seemed evidently copied from some old-world
model of an Athenian palace.

“I don’t think it’s possible to see anything lovelier!” she said to
herself. “And what luck it is for me to live here! Who could have
guessed it! It’s like a dream of fairyland!”

She gathered a rose hanging temptingly within reach, and fastened it in
her bodice.

“Let me see!” she went on, thinking--“It’s just a week since I was
‘drowned’ in Devon! Such a little while!--why Ma hasn’t had time yet
to get her mourning properly fitted! And Pa! I wonder how he really
‘carries’ himself, as they say, under his affliction! I think it will
be a case of ‘bearing up wonderfully,’ for both of them. One week!--and
my little boat of life, tied so long by a worn rope to a weedy shore,
has broken adrift and floated away by itself to a veritable paradise
of new experience. But,--am I counting too much on my good fortune, I
wonder? Perhaps there will be some crushing drawback,--some terrorizing
influence--who knows! And yet--I think not. Anyhow, I have signed,
sealed, and delivered myself over to my chosen destiny;--it is wiser
to hope for the best than imagine the worst.”

Arrived at the hall door of the Château she found it open, and passed
in unquestioned, as an admitted member of the household. She saw a
neat maid busying herself with the arrangement of some flowers, and of
her she asked the way to her rooms. The girl at once preceded her up
the wide staircase and showed her the passage leading to the beautiful
suite of apartments she had seen in the morning, remarking:

“Madame will be quite private here,--this passage is shut off from the
rest of the house, and is an entry to these rooms only, and if Madame
wants any service she will ring and I will come. My name is Rose.”

“Thank you, Rose!” and Diana smiled at her, feeling a sense of relief
to know that she could have the attention of a simple ordinary domestic
such as this pleasant-looking little French _femme-de-chambre_,--for
somehow she had connected the dumb negro who had at first admitted her
to the Château with a whole imagined retinue of mysterious persons,
sworn to silence in the service of Dimitrius. “I will not trouble you
more than I can help--hark!--what is that noise?”

A low, organ-like sound as of persistent thudding and humming echoed
around her,--it suggested suppressed thunder. The girl Rose looked
quite unconcerned.

“Oh, that is the machine in the Doctor’s laboratory,” she said. “But it
does not often make any noise. We do not know quite what it is,--we are
not permitted to see!” She smiled, and added: “But Madame will not long
be disturbed--it will soon cease.”

And indeed the thunderous hum died slowly away as she spoke, leaving a
curious sense of emptiness on the air. Diana still listened, vaguely
fascinated,--but the silence remained unbroken. Rose nodded brightly,
in pleased affirmation of her own words, and left the room, closing the
door behind her.

Alone, Diana went to the window and looked out. What a glorious
landscape was spread before her!--what a panorama of the Divine
handiwork in Nature! Tears sprang to her eyes--tears, not of sorrow,
but of joy.

“I hope I am grateful enough!” she thought. “For now I have every
reason to be grateful. I tried hard to feel grateful for all my
blessings at home,--yet somehow I couldn’t be!--there seemed no way out
of the daily monotony--no hope anywhere!--but now--now, with all this
unexpected good luck I could sing ‘Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!’ with more fervour than any Salvationist!”

She went into the cosy bedroom which adjoined her _salon_ to see if
she looked neat and well-arranged enough in her dress to go down to
tea,--there was a long mirror there, and in it she surveyed herself
critically. Certainly that navy “model” gown suited her slim figure
to perfection--“And,” she said to herself, “if people only looked at
my hair and my too, too scraggy shape, they might almost take me for
‘young!’ But woe’s me!”--and she touched the corners of her eyes with
the tips of her fingers--“here are the wicked crow’s-feet!--_they_
won’t go!--and the ‘lines from nose to chin’ which the beauty
specialists offer to eradicate and can’t,--the ugly ruts made by Time’s
unkind plough and my own too sorrowful habit of thought,--_they_ won’t
go, either! However, here it doesn’t matter,--the Doctor wanted ‘a
woman of mature years’--and he’s got her!” She smiled cheerfully at
herself in the mirror which reflected a shape that was graceful in its
outline if somewhat too thin--“distinctly willowy” as she said--and
then she began thinking about clothes, like any other feminine
creature. She was glad Sophy had made her buy two charming tea-gowns,
and one very dainty evening party frock; and she was now anxious to
give the “number” of the luggage she had left at the Salle des Bagages
to Dr. Dimitrius, so that it might be sent for without delay. Meanwhile
she looked at all the elegancies of her rooms, and noted the comfort
and convenience with which everything was arranged. One novelty
attracted and pleased her,--this was a small round dial, put up against
the wall, and marked with the hours at which meals were served. A
silver arrow, seemingly moved by interior clockwork, just now pointed
to “Tea, five o’clock,” and while she was yet looking at it, a musical
little bell rang very persistently behind the dial for about a minute,
and then ceased.

“Tea-time, of course!” she said, and glancing at her watch she saw it
was just five o’clock. “What a capital invention! One of these in each
room saves all the ugly gong-beating and bell-ringing which is common
in most houses; I had better go.”

She went at once, running down the broad staircase with light feet as
buoyantly as a girl, and remembering her way easily to the room where
she had breakfasted in the morning. Madame Dimitrius was there alone,
knitting placidly, and looking the very picture of contentment. She
smiled a welcome as Diana entered.

“So you have come back to us!” she said. “I am very glad! One lady who
answered my son’s advertisement, went to see after her luggage in the
same manner as you were told to do--and--ran away!”

“Ran away!” echoed Diana. “What for?”

The old lady laughed.

“Oh, I think she got afraid at the last moment! Something my son said,
or _looked_, scared her! But he was not surprised,--he has always given
every applicant a chance to run away!”

“Not me!” said Diana, merrily. “For he made me sign an agreement, and
gave me some of my salary in advance--he would hardly expect me to run
away with his money?”

“Why not?” and Dimitrius himself entered the room. “Why not, Miss May?
Many a woman and many a man has been known to make short work with an
agreement,--what is it but ‘a scrap of paper’? And there are any number
of Humans who would judge it ‘clever’ to run off with money confidingly
entrusted to them!”

“You are cynical,” said Diana. “And I don’t think you mean what
you say. You know very well that honour stands first with every
right-thinking man or woman.”

“Right-thinking! Oh, yes!--I grant you that,”--and he drew a chair
up to the tea-table where his mother had just seated herself. “But
‘right-thinking’ is a compound word big enough to cover a whole world
of ethics and morals. If ‘right-thinking’ were the rule instead of the
exception, we should have a real Civilisation instead of a Sham!”

Diana looked at him more critically and attentively than she had yet
done. His personality was undeniably attractive,--some people would
have considered him handsome. He had wonderful eyes,--they were his
most striking feature--dark, deep, and sparkling with a curiously
brilliant intensity. He had spoken of his Russian nationality,
but there was nothing of the Kalmuck about him,--much more of the
picturesque Jew or Arab. An indefinable grace distinguished his
movements, unlike the ordinary type of lumbersome man, who, without
military or other training, never seems to know what to do with
his hands or his feet. He noticed Diana’s intent study of him, and
smiled--a charming smile, indulgent and kindly.

“I mystify you a little already!” he said. “Yes, I am sure I do!--but
there are so many surprises in store for you that I think you had
better not begin putting the pieces of the puzzle together till they
are all out of the box! Never mind what I seem to you, or what I
may turn out to be,--enjoy for the present the simple safety of the
Commonplace; there’s nothing so balancing to the mind as a quiet
contemplation of the tea-table! By the way, did you arrange about your
luggage as I told you?”

Diana nodded a cheerful assent.

“Here’s the number,” she said. “And if you are going to send for it,
would you do so quite soon? I want to change my dress for dinner.”

Dimitrius laughed as he took the number from her hand.

“Of course you do!” he said. “Even ‘a woman of mature years’ is never
above looking her best! Armed with this precious slip of paper, I will
send for your belongings at once----”

“It’s only a portmanteau,” put in Diana, meekly. “Not a Saratoga trunk.”

He gave her an amused look.

“Didn’t you bring any Paris ‘confections’?”

“I didn’t wait in Paris,” she replied. “I came straight on.”

“A long journey!” said Madame Dimitrius.

“Yes. But I was anxious to get here as soon as I could.”

“In haste to rush upon destiny!” observed Dimitrius, rising from the
tea-table. “Well! Perhaps it is better than waiting for destiny to rush
upon _you_! I will send for your luggage--it will be here in half an
hour. Meanwhile, when you have quite finished your tea, will you join
me in the laboratory?”

He left the room. Madame Dimitrius laid down her knitting needles and
looked wistfully at Diana.

“I hope you will not be afraid of my son,” she said, “or offended
at anything he may say. His brain is always working--always seeking
to penetrate some new mystery,--and sometimes--from sheer physical
fatigue--he may seem brusque,--but his nature is noble----”

She paused, with a slight trembling of the lip and sudden moisture in
her kind blue eyes.

Impulsively, Diana took her thin delicate old hand and kissed it.

“Please don’t worry!” she said. “I am not easily offended, and I
certainly shall not be afraid! I like your son very much, and I think
we shall get on splendidly together--I do, indeed! I’m simply burning
with impatience to be at work for him! Be quite satisfied that I shall
do my best! I’m off to the laboratory now.”

She went with a swift, eager step, and on reaching the outer hall was
unexpectedly confronted by the dumb negro who had at first admitted
her to the Château. He made her a sign to follow him, and she obeyed.
Down a long, winding, rather dark passage they went till their further
progress was stopped by a huge door made of some iridescent metal which
glowed as with interior fire. It was so enormously thick, and wide and
lofty, and clamped with such weighty bars and mysteriously designed
fastenings, that it might have been the door imagined by Dante when
he wrote: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Diana felt her heart
beating a little more quickly, but she kept a good grip on her nerves,
and looked questioningly at her guide. His dark face gave no sign in
response; he merely laid one hand on the centre panel of the door with
a light pressure.

“Come in!” said the voice of Dimitrius. “Don’t hesitate!”

At that moment the whole door lifted itself as it were from a deep
socket in the ground and swung upwards like the portcullis of an
ancient bridge, only without any noise, disclosing a vast circular
space covered in by a dome of glass, or some substance clearer than
glass, through which the afternoon glory of the September sunshine
blazed with an almost blinding intensity. Immediately under the
dome, and in the exact centre of the circular floor, was a wonderful
looking piece of mechanism, a great wheel which swept round and round
incessantly and rapidly, casting from its rim millions and millions of
sparks of light or fire.

“Come in!” again called Dimitrius. “Why do you stand waiting there?”

Diana looked back for a second,--the great metal door had closed
behind her,--the negro attendant had disappeared,--she was shut within
this great weird chamber with Dimitrius and that whirling Wheel! A
sudden giddiness overcame her--she stretched out her hands blindly for
support--they were instantly caught in a firm, kind grasp.

“Keep steady! That’s right!” This, as she rallied her forces and tried
to look up. “It’s not easy to watch any sort of Spherical Motion
without wanting to go with it among ‘the dancing stars!’ There! Better?”

“Indeed, yes! I’m so sorry and ashamed!” she said. “Such a stupid
weakness! But I have never seen anything like it----”

“No, I’m sure you have not!” And Dimitrius released her hands and stood
beside her. “To give you greater relief, I would stop the Wheel if I
could--but I cannot!”

“You cannot?”

“No. Not till the daylight goes. Then it will gradually cease
revolving of itself. It is only a very inadequate man-made exposition
of one of the Divine mysteries of creation,--the force of Light
which generates Motion, and from Motion, Life. Moses touched the
central pivot of truth in his Book of Genesis when he wrote: ‘The
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep.... And God said, Let there be Light. And there was Light.’
From that ‘Light,’ the effulgence of God’s own Actual Presence and
Intelligence, came the Movement which dispelled ‘darkness.’ Movement,
once begun, shaped all that which before was ‘without form’ and
filled all that had been ‘void.’ Light is the positive exhalation and
pulsation of the Divine Existence--the Active Personality of an Eternal
God;--Light, which enters the soul and builds the body of every living
organism,--therefore Light is Life.”




CHAPTER IX


Diana listened to the quiet, emphatic tones of his voice in fascinated
attention.

“Light is Life,” he repeated, slowly. “Light--and the twin portion
of Light,--Fire. The Rosicrucians have come nearer than any other
religious sect in the world to the comprehension of things divine.
Darkness is Chaos,--not death, for there is _no_ death--but confusion,
bewilderment and blindness which gropes for a glory instinctively felt
but unseen. In these latter days, science has discovered the beginning
of the wonders of Light,--they have always existed, but we have not
found them, ‘loving darkness rather than light.’ I say the ‘beginning
of wonders,’ for with all our advancement we have only become dimly
conscious of the first vibration of the Creator’s living presence.
Light!--which is ‘God walking in His garden,’--which is colour,
sound, heat, movement--all the Divine Power in eternal radiation and
luminance!--this is Life;--and in this _we_ live,--in this we _may_
live, and renew our lives,--ay, and in this we may retain youth beyond
age! If we only have courage!--courage and the will to learn!”

His brilliant dark eyes turned upon her with a searching steadfastness,
and her heart beat quickly, for there was something in his look which
suggested that it was from her he expected “courage and the will to
learn.” But she made no comment. Suddenly, and with an abrupt movement,
he pulled with both hands at a lever apparently made of steel,--like
one of the handles in a signal-box,--and with his action the level
floor beneath the great revolving wheel yawned asunder, showing a round
pool of water, black as ink and seemingly very deep. Diana recoiled
from it, startled. Dimitrius smiled.

“Suppose I asked you to jump in?” he said.

She thought a moment.

“Well,--I should want to take off my dress first,” she answered. “It’s
a new one.”

He laughed.

“And then?”

“Then?--Why, then I shouldn’t mind!” she said. “I can swim.”

“You would not be afraid?”

She met his eyes bravely.

“No--I should not be afraid!”

“Upon my word, I believe you! You’re a plucky woman! But then you’ve
nothing to lose by your daring, having lost all--so you told me. What
do you mean by having lost all?”

“I mean just what I say,” she replied quietly. “Father, mother, home,
lover, youth, beauty and hope! Isn’t that enough to lose?”

And, as she spoke, she gazed almost unseeingly at the wonderful Wheel
as it whirled round and round, glittering with a thousand colours which
were reflected in the dark mirror of the water below it. The sun was
sinking, and the light through the over-arching glass dome was softer,
and with each minute became more subdued,--and she noted with keen
interest that the revolution of the wheel was less rapid and dizzying
to the eye.

“Enough to lose--yes!” said Dimitrius. “But the loss is quite common.
Most of us, as we get on in life, lose father and mother, home, and
even lover!--but that we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite
our own affair! We ought to know better!” She looked at him in surprise.

“How should we know better?” she asked. “Age must come,--and with age
the wrinkling and spoiling of all beautiful faces, to say nothing of
the aches and pains and ailments common to a general break-up of the
body-cells. We cannot defy the law of Nature.”

“That is precisely what we are always doing!” said Dimitrius. “And
that is why we make such trouble for ourselves. We not only defy the
law of Nature in a bodily sense by over-eating, over-drinking and
over-breeding, but we ignore it altogether in a spiritual sense.
We forget,--and wilfully forget, that the body is only the outward
manifestation of a Soul-creature, not the Soul-creature itself. So we
starve the Light and feed the Shadow, and then foolishly wonder that,
with the perishing Light, the Shadow is absorbed in darkness.”

He pulled at the steel lever again, and the mysterious pool of water
became swiftly and noiselessly covered as part of the apparently solid
ground.

“One more thing before we go,” he resumed, and, taking a key from his
pocket, he unlocked a tiny door no bigger than the door of a child’s
doll house. “Come and see!”

Diana obeyed, and bending down to peer into the small aperture
disclosed, saw therein a tube or pipe no thicker than a straw, from
which fell slowly drop by drop a glittering liquid into a hollow globe
of crystal. So brilliant and fiery was the colour of this fluid,
that it might have been an essence of the very sunlight. She looked
at Dimitrius in silent inquiry. He said nothing--and presently she
ventured to ask in a half whisper:

“What is it?”

His expression, as he turned and faced her, was so rapt and
transfigured as to be quite extraordinary.

“It is life,--or it is death!” he answered. “It is my Great Experiment
of which _you_ will be the practical test! Ah, now you look amazed
indeed!--your eyes are almost young in wonder!--and yet I see no fear!
That is well! Now think and understand! All this mechanism,--which is
far more complex than you can imagine,--this dome of crystal above
us,--this revolving wheel moved by Light alone,--the deep water beneath
us through which the condensed and vibrating Light rushes with electric
speed,--these million whirling atoms of fire,--all this, I say, is
merely--remember!--merely to produce these miniature drops, smaller
by many degrees than a drop of dew, and so slowly are they distilled,
that it has taken me ten years to draw from these restless and opposing
elements a sufficient quantity for my great purpose. Ten years!--and
after all, who knows? All my thought and labour may be wasted!--I may
have taken the wrong road! The fiery sword turns every way, and even
now I may fail!”

His face darkened,--the hope and radiance died out of it and left it
grey and drawn--almost old. Diana laid her hand on his arm with a soft,
consoling touch.

“Why should you fail?” she asked, gently. “You yourself know the
object of your quest and the problem you seek to solve,--and I am sure
you have missed no point that could avail to lead you in the right
direction. And if, as I now imagine, you need a human life to risk
itself in the ultimate triumph of your work, you have mine entirely
at your service. As I have told you several times already, I am not
afraid!”

He took the hand that lay upon his arm and kissed it with grave
courtesy.

“I thank you!” he said. “I feel that you are perfectly sincere--and
honesty always breeds courage. Understand, my mother has never seen
this workshop of mine--she would be terrified. The dome was built for
me by my French architect, ostensibly for astronomical purposes--the
rest of the mechanism, bit by bit, was sent to me from different parts
of the world and I put it up myself assisted only by Vasho, my negro
servant, who is dumb. So my secret is, as far as possible, well kept.”

“I shall not betray it,” said Diana, simply.

He smiled.

“I know you will not,” he answered.

With almost a miser’s care he locked the tiny door which concealed
the mystery of the fiery-golden liquid dropping so slowly, almost
reluctantly, into its crystal receptacle. The sun had sunk below the
horizon, and shadows began to creep over the clearness of the dome
above them, while the great Wheel turned at a slower pace--and ever
more slowly as the light grew dim.

“We will go now,” he said. “One or two ordinary people are coming to
dine--and your luggage will have arrived. I want you to live happily
here, and healthfully--your health is a most important consideration
with me. You look thin and delicate----”

“I am thin--to positive scragginess,” interrupted Diana, “but I am not
delicate.”

“Well, that may be; but you must keep strong. You will need all your
strength in the days to come.”

They were at the closed door of the laboratory, which by some unseen
contrivance, evidently controlled by the pressure of the hand against a
particular panel, swung upwards in the same way as it had done before,
and when they passed out, slid downwards again behind them. They were
in the corridor now, dimly lit by one electric lamp.

“You are not intimidated by anything I have shown you?” said Dimitrius,
then. “After all, you are a woman and entitled to ‘nerves!’”

“Quite so,--nerves properly organised and well under control,” answered
Diana, quietly. “I am full of wonder at what I have seen, but I am not
intimidated.”

“Good!” And a sudden smile lit up his face, giving it a wonderful
charm. “Now run away and dress for dinner! And don’t puzzle yourself by
thinking about anything for the present. If you _must_ think, wait till
you are alone with night and the stars!”

He left her, and she went upstairs at once to her own rooms. Here
repose and beauty were expressed in all her surroundings and she looked
about her with a sigh of comfort and appreciation. Some careful hand
had set vases of exquisitely arranged flowers here and there,--and the
scent of roses, carnations and autumn violets made the already sweet
air sweeter. She found her modest luggage in her bedroom, and set to
work unpacking and arranging her clothes.

“He’s quite right,--I mustn’t think!” she said to herself. “It would
never do! That wheel grinding out golden fire!--that mysterious pool
of water in which one might easily be drowned and never heard of any
more!--and those precious drops, locked up in a tiny hole!--what can
all these things mean? There!--I’m thinking and I mustn’t think!
But--is he mad, I wonder? Surely not! No madman ever put up such a
piece of mechanism as that Wheel! I’m thinking again!--I mustn’t
think!--I mustn’t think!”

She soon had all her garments unpacked, shaken out, and arranged in
their different places, and, after some cogitation, decided to wear for
the evening one of the Parisian “rest” or “tea” gowns her friend Sophy
Lansing had chosen for her,--a marvellous admixture of palest rose
and lilac hues, with a touch or two of pearl glimmerings among lace
like moonlight on foam. She took some pains to dress her pretty hair
becomingly, twisting it up high on her small, well-shaped head, and
when her attire was complete she surveyed herself in the long mirror
with somewhat less dissatisfaction than she was accustomed to do.

“Not so bad!” she inwardly commented, approving the picturesque fall
and flow of the rose and lilac silk and chiffon which clung softly
round her slim figure. “You are not entirely repulsive yet, Diana!--not
yet! But you will be!--never fear! Just wait a little!--wait till your
cheeks sink in a couple of bony hollows and your throat looks like the
just-wrung neck of a scrawny fowl!” Here she laughed, with a quaint
amusement at the unpleasant picture she was making of herself in the
future. “Yes, my dear! Not all the clouds of rosy chiffon in the world
will hide your blemishes then!--and your hair!--oh, your hair will be
a sort of grizzled ginger and you’ll have to hide it! So you’d better
enjoy this little interval--it won’t last long!” Suddenly at this
point in her soliloquy some words uttered by Dimitrius rang back on
her memory: “That we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite our
own affair. We ought to know better.” She repeated them slowly once or
twice. “Strange!--a very strange thing to say!” she mused. “I wonder
what he meant by it? I’m sure if it had been my ‘own affair’ to keep
youth, beauty and hope, I would never have lost them! Oddly enough I
seem to have got back a little scrap of one of the losses--hope! But
I’m thinking again--I mustn’t think!”

She curtsied playfully to her own reflection in the mirror, and seeing
by the warning “time dial” for meals that it was nearly the dinner
hour, she descended to the drawing-room. Three or four people were
assembled there, talking to Madame Dimitrius, who introduced Diana
as “Miss May, an English friend of ours who is staying with us for
the winter”--an announcement which Diana herself tacitly accepted as
being no doubt what Dr. Dimitrius wished. The persons to whom she was
thus presented were the Baroness Rousillon, a handsome Frenchwoman
of possibly fifty-six or sixty,--her husband, the Baron, a stout,
cheerful personage with a somewhat aggravating air of perpetual
_bonhomie_,--Professor Chauvet, a very thin little old gentleman with
an aquiline nose and drooping eyelids from which small, sparkling
dark eyes gleamed out occasionally like needle-points, and a certain
Marchese Luigi Farnese, a rather sinister-looking dark young man,
with a curiously watchful expression, as of one placed on guard over
some hidden secret treasure. They were all exceedingly amiable,
and asked Diana the usual polite questions,--whether she had had a
pleasant journey from England?--was the Channel rough?--was the weather
fine?--was she a good sailor?--and so on, all of which she answered
pleasantly in that sweet and musical voice which always attracted and
charmed her hearers.

“And you come from England!” said Professor Chauvet, blinking at her
through his eyelids. “Ah! it is a strange place!”

Diana smiled, but said nothing.

“It is a strange place!” reiterated the Professor, with more emphasis.
“It is a place of violent contrasts without any intermediate tones.
Stupidity and good sense, moral cowardice and physical courage, petty
grudging and large generosity, jostle each other in couples all through
English society, yet after, and with these drawbacks, it is very
attractive!”

“I’m so glad you like it,” said Diana, cheerfully. “I expect the same
faults can be found in all countries and with all nations. We English
are not the worst people in the world!”

“By no means!” conceded the Professor, inclining his head courteously.
“You might almost claim to be the best--if it were not for France,--and
Italy,--and Russia!”

The Baroness Rousillon smiled.

“How clever of you, Professor!” she said. “You are careful to include
all nationalities here present in your implied compliment, and so you
avoid argument!”

“Madame, I never argue with a lady!” he replied. “First, because it is
bad manners, and second, because it is always useless!”

They all laughed, with the gentle tolerance of persons who know an old
saying by heart. Just then Dr. Dimitrius entered and severally greeted
his guests. Despite her efforts to seem otherwise entertained, Diana
found herself watching his every movement and trying to hear every word
he said. Only very few men look well in evening dress, and he was one
of those few. A singular distinction marked his bearing and manner;
in any assemblage of notable people he would have been assuredly
selected as one of the most attractive and remarkable. Once he caught
her eyes steadfastly regarding him, and smiled encouragingly. Whereat
she coloured deeply and felt ashamed of her close observation of him.
He took the Baroness Rousillon in to dinner, the Baron following with
Madame Dimitrius, and Diana was left with a choice between two men as
her escort. She looked in smiling inquiry at both. Professor Chauvet
settled the point.

“Marchese, you had better take Miss May,” he said, addressing the dark
Italian. “I never allow myself to go in to dinner with any woman--it’s
my habit always to go alone.”

“How social and independent of you!” said Diana, gaily, accepting the
Marchese’s instantly proffered arm. “You like to be original?--or is it
only to attract attention to yourself?”

The Professor opened his eyes to their fullest extent under their
half-shut lids. Here was an Englishwoman daring to quiz him!--or, as
the English themselves would say, “chaff” him! He coughed, glared,
and tried to look dignified, but failed,--and was fain to trot, or
rather shuffle, in to the dining-room somewhat meekly at the trailing
end of Diana’s rose and lilac chiffon train. When they were all seated
at table, he looked at her with what was, for him, unusual curiosity,
realising that she was not quite an “ordinary” sort of woman. He began
to wonder about her, and where she came from,--it was all very well to
say “from England”--but up to now, all conversation had been carried on
in French, and her French had no trace whatever of the British accent.
She sat opposite to him, and he had good opportunity to observe her
attentively, though furtively. She was talking with much animation to
the Marchese Farnese,--her voice had the most enchanting modulation
of tone,--and, straining his ears to hear what she was saying, he
found she was speaking Italian. At this he was fairly nonplussed and
somewhat annoyed--he did not speak Italian himself. All his theories
respecting the British female were upset. _No_ British female--he said
this inwardly--_no_ single one of the species in his knowledge, talked
the French of France, or the Italian of Tuscany. He watched her with an
almost grudging interest. She was not young,--she was not old.

“Some man has had the making or the marring of her!” he thought,
crossly. “No woman ever turned _herself_ out with such _aplomb_ and
_savoir faire_!”

Meanwhile Diana was enjoying her dinner. She was cleverly “drawing out”
her partner at table, young Farnese, who proved to be passionately
keen on all scientific research, and particularly so on the mysterious
doings of Féodor Dimitrius. Happy to find himself next to a woman who
spoke his native tongue with charm and fluency, he “let himself go”
freely.

“I suppose you have known Dr. Dimitrius for some time?” he asked.

Diana thought for a second,--then replied promptly:

“Oh, yes!”

“He’s a wonderful man!” said Farnese. “Wonderful! I have myself
witnessed his cures of cases given up by all other doctors as hopeless.
I have asked him to accept me as a student under him, but he will
not. He has some mystery which he will allow no one but himself to
penetrate.”

“Really!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows in an arch of surprise. “He has
never given me that impression.”

“Ah, no!” and Farnese smiled rather darkly. “He would not appear in
that light to one of your sex. He does not care for women. His own
mother is not really aware of the nature of his studies or the object
of his work. Nobody has his confidence. As you are a friend of his you
must know this quite well?”

“Oh, yes!--yes, of course!” murmured Diana, absently. “But nobody
expects a very clever man to explain himself to his friends--or to the
public. He must always do his work more or less alone.”

“I agree!” said the Marchese. “And this is why I cannot understand the
action of Dimitrius in advertising for an assistant----”

“Oh, has he done so?” inquired Diana, indifferently.

“Yes,--for the last couple of months he has put a most eccentric
advertisement in many of the journals, seeking the services of an
elderly woman as assistant or secretary--I don’t know which. It’s some
odd new notion of his, and, I venture to think, rather a mistaken
one--for if he will not trust a man student, how much less can he rely
on an old woman!”

“Eccellenza, you are talking to a woman now,” said Diana, calmly. “But
never mind! Go on--and don’t apologise!”

Farnese’s dark olive skin flushed red.

“But I must!” he stammered, awkwardly. “I ask a thousand pardons!”

She glanced at him sideways with a laughing look.

“You are forgiven!” she said. “Women are quite hardened to the ironies
and satires of your sex upon us,--and if we have any cleverness at
all we are more amused by them than offended. For we know you cannot
do without us! But certainly it is very odd that Dr. Dimitrius should
advertise for an old woman! I never heard anything quite so funny!”

“He does not, I think, advertise for an actually old woman,” said
Farnese, relieved to find that she had taken his clumsy remark so
lightly. “The advertisement when I saw it mentioned a woman of mature
years.”

“Oh, well, that’s a polite way of saying an old woman, isn’t it?”
smiled Diana. “And--do tell me!--has he got her?”

“Why no!--not yet. Probably he will not get her at all. Even let us
suppose a woman offered herself who admitted that she was ‘of mature
years,’ that very fact would be sufficient proof of her incapacity.”

“Indeed!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows again. “Why?”

The Marchese smiled a superior smile.

“Perhaps I had better not explain!” he said. “But for a woman to
arrive at ‘mature years’ without any interests in life except to offer
her probably untrained services to a man she knows nothing of except
through the medium of an advertisement is plain evidence that any such
woman must be a fool!”

Diana laughed merrily--and her laughter was the prettiest ripple of
music.

“Oh, yes!--of course! I see your meaning!” she said. “You are quite
right! But after all perhaps the elderly female is only wanted to add
up accounts, or write down measurements or something of that kind--just
ordinary routine work. Some lonely old spinster with no claims upon her
might be glad of such a chance----”

“Are you discussing my advertisement?” interrupted Dimitrius suddenly,
sending a glance and smile at Diana from the head of the table. “I have
withdrawn it.”

“Have you really?” said the Marchese. “That is not to say you are
suited?”

“Suited? Oh, no! I shall never be suited! It was a foolish quest,--and
I ought to have known better!” His dark eyes sparkled mirthfully. “You
see I had rather forgotten the fact that no woman cares to admit she is
‘of mature years,’--I had also forgotten the well-known male formula
that ‘no woman can be trusted.’ However, I have only lost a few hundred
francs in my advertising--so I have nothing to regret except my own
folly.”

“Had you many applications?” inquired Professor Chauvet.

Dimitrius laughed.

“Only one!” he answered, gaily. “And she was a poor lone lady who had
lost all she thought worth living for. Of course she was--impossible!”

“Naturally!” and the Professor nodded sagaciously--“She would be!”

“What was she like?” asked Diana, with an amused look.

“Like no woman I have ever seen!” replied Dimitrius, smiling
quizzically at her. “Mature, and fully ripened in her opinions,--fairly
obstinate, and difficult to get rid of.”

“I congratulate you on having succeeded!” said Farnese.

“Succeeded? In what way?”

“In having got rid of her!”

“Oh, yes! But--I don’t think she wanted to go!”

“No woman ever wants to go if there’s a good-looking bachelor with whom
she has any chance to stay!” said the Baron Rousillon, expanding his
shirt front and smiling largely all round the table. “The ‘poor lone
lady’ must have taken your rejection of her services rather badly.”

“That’s the way most men would look at it,” replied Dimitrius. “But,
my dear Baron, I’m afraid we are rather narrow and primitive in our
ideas of the fair sex--not to say conceited. It is quite our own notion
that _all_ women need us or find us desirable. Some women would much
rather not be bored with us at all. One of the prettiest women I ever
knew remained unmarried because, as she frankly said, she did not wish
to be a housekeeper to any man or be bored by his perpetual company.
There’s something in it, you know! Every man has his own particular
‘groove’ in which he elects to run--and in his ‘groove’ he’s apt to
become monotonous and tiresome. That is why, when I advertised, I asked
for a woman ‘of mature years,’--someone who had ‘settled down,’ and who
would not find it wearisome to trot tamely alongside of _my_ special
‘groove,’ but of course it was very absurd on my part to expect to find
a woman of that sort who was at the same time well-educated and clever.”

“You should marry, my dear Dimitrius!--you should marry!” said the
Baroness Rousillon, with a brilliant flash of her fine eyes and an
encouraging smile.

“Never, my dear Baroness!--never!” he replied, with emphasis. “I am
capable of many things, but not of that most arrant stupidity! Were I
to marry, my work would be ruined--I should become immersed in the
domesticities of the kitchen and the nursery, living my life at no
higher grade than the life of the farmyard or rabbit-warren. In my
opinion, marriage is a mistake,--but we must not argue such a point in
the presence of a happily married couple like yourself and the Baron.
Look at our excellent friend, Chauvet! He has never married.”

“Thank God!” ejaculated the Professor, devoutly,--while everybody
laughed. “Ah, you may laugh! But it is I who laugh last! When I see
the unfortunate husband going out for a slow walk with his wife and
three or four screaming, jumping children, who behave like savages,
not knowing what they want or where they wish to go, I bless my happy
fate that I can do my ten miles a day alone, revelling in the beauty of
the mountains and lakes, and enjoying my own thoughts in peace. Like
Amriel, I have not married because I am afraid of disillusion!”

“But have you thought of the possible woman in the case?” asked Diana,
sweetly and suddenly. “Might she not also suffer from ‘disillusion’ if
you were her husband?”

Laughter again rang round the table,--the Professor rose, glass of wine
in hand, and made Diana a solemn bow.

“Madame, I stand reproved!” he said. “And I drink to your health and
to England, your native country! And in reply to your question, I am
honest enough to say that I think any woman who had been so unfortunate
as to marry me, would have put herself out of her misery a month after
the wedding!”

Renewed merriment rewarded this _amende honorable_ on the part of
Chauvet, who sat down well pleased with himself--and well pleased, too,
with Diana, whom he considered quick-witted and clever, and whose
smile when he had made his little speech had quite won him over.

Madame Dimitrius, chiefly intent on the hospitable cares of the
table, had listened to all the conversation with an old lady’s placid
enjoyment, only putting in a word now and then, and smiling with
affectionate encouragement at Diana, and dessert being presently
served, and cigars and cigarettes handed round by the negro, Vasho, who
was the sole attendant, she gave the signal for the ladies to retire.

“You do not smoke?” said the Marchese Farnese, as Diana moved from her
place.

“No, indeed!”

“You dislike it?”

“For women,--yes.”

“Then you are old-fashioned!” he commented, playfully.

“Yes. And I am very glad of it!” she answered, quietly, and followed
Madame Dimitrius and the Baroness Rousillon out of the room. As she
passed Dimitrius, who held open the door for their exit, he said a few
low-toned words in Russian which owing to her own study of the language
she understood. They were:

“Excellent! You have kept your own counsel and mine, most admirably! I
thank you with all my heart!”




CHAPTER X


That first evening in the Château Fragonard taught Diana exactly what
was expected of her. It was evident that both Dimitrius and his mother
chose to assume that she was a friend of theirs, staying with them
on a visit, and she realised that she was not supposed to offer any
other explanation of her presence. The famous advertisement had been
“withdrawn,” and the Doctor had plainly announced that he was “not
suited,” and that he had resigned all further quest of the person
he had sought. That he had some good reason for disguising the real
facts of the case Diana felt sure, and she was quite satisfied to fall
in with his method of action. The more so, when she found herself
an object of interest and curiosity to the Baroness Rousillon, who
spared no effort to “draw her out” and gain some information as to her
English home, her surroundings and ordinary associations. The Baroness
had a clever and graceful way of cross-examining strangers through an
assumption of friendliness, but Diana was equally clever and graceful
in the art of “fence” and was not to be “drawn.” When the men left the
dinner-table and came into the drawing-room she was placed as it were
between two fires,--Professor Chauvet and the Marchese Farnese, both
of whom were undisguisedly inquisitive, Farnese especially--and Diana
was not slow to discover that his chief aim in conversing with her was
to find out something,--anything--which could throw a light on the
exact nature of the work in which Dimitrius was engaged. Perceiving
this, she played with him like a shuttlecock, tossing him away from
his main point whenever he got near it, much to his scarcely concealed
irritation. Every now and again she caught a steel-like flash in the
dark eyes of Dimitrius, who, though engaged in casual talk with the
Baron and Baroness Rousillon, glanced at her occasionally in fullest
comprehension and approval,--and somehow it became borne in upon her
mind that if Farnese only knew the way to the scientist’s laboratory,
he would have very little scruple about breaking into any part of it
with the hope of solving its hidden problem.

“Why do you imagine there is any mystery about the Doctor’s works?” she
asked him. “I know of none!”

“He would never let any _woman_ know,” replied Farnese, with
conviction. “But she might find out for herself if she were clever!
There is a mystery without doubt. For instance, what is that great dome
of glass which catches the sunlight on its roof and glitters in the
distance, when I look towards the Château from my sailing boat on the
lake----?”

“Oh, you have a sailing boat on the lake?” exclaimed Diana, clasping
her hands in well-affected ecstasy. “How enchanting! Like Lord Byron,
when he lived at the Villa Diodati!”

“Ah!” put in Professor Chauvet. “So you know your Byron! Then you are
not one of the moderns?”

Diana smiled.

“No. I do _not_ prefer Kipling to the author of ‘Childe Harold.’”

“Then you are lost--irretrievably lost!” said the Professor. “In
England, at any rate. In England, if you are a true lover of
literature, you must sneer at Byron because it’s academic to do
so--Oxford and Cambridge have taken to decrying genius and worshipping
mediocrity. Byron is the only English poet known and honoured in other
countries than England--your modern verse writers are not understood in
France, Italy or Russia. Half a dozen of Byron’s stanzas would set up
all the British latter-day rhymers with ideas,--only, of course, they
would never admit it. I’m glad I’ve met an Englishwoman who has sense
enough to appreciate Byron.”

“Thank you!” said Diana in a small, meek voice. “You are most kind!”

Here Farnese rushed in again upon his argument.

“That glass dome----”

Diana smothered a tiny yawn.

“Oh, that’s an astronomical place!” she said, indifferently. “You know
the kind of thing! Telescopes, globes, mathematical instruments--all
those sort of objects.”

The Marchese looked surprised,--then incredulous.

“An astronomical place?” he repeated. “Are you sure? Have you seen it?”

“Why, yes, of course!” and she laughed. “Haven’t you?”

“Never! He allows no visitors inside it.”

“Ah, I expect you’re too inquisitive!” and she looked at him with a
bland and compassionate tolerance. “You see, being a woman, I don’t
care about difficult studies, such as astronomy. Women are not supposed
to understand the sciences,--they never _can_ grasp anything in the way
of mathematics, can they?”

Farnese hesitated.

Chauvet interposed quickly.

“They can,--but to my mind they cease to be women when they do. They
become indifferent to the softer emotions----”

“What emotions?” queried Diana, unfurling a little fan and waving it
slowly to and fro.

“The emotions of love,--of tenderness,--of passion----”

“Ah, yes! You mean the emotions of love, of tenderness, of passion--for
what? For man? Well, of course!--the most surface knowledge of
mathematics would soon put an end to that sort of thing!”

“Dear English madame, you are pleased to be severe!” said Chauvet. “Yet
the soft emotions are surely ‘woman’s distinguishing charm’?”

She laughed.

“Men like to say so,” she replied. “Because it flatters their vanity
to rouse these ‘soft emotions’ and translate them into love for
themselves. But have you had any experience, Professor? If any woman
had displayed ‘soft emotions’ towards you, would you not have been
disposed to nip them in the bud?”

“Most likely! I am not an object for sentimental consideration,--I
never was. I should have greatly regretted it if one of your charming
sex had wasted her time or herself on me.”

Just then Madame Dimitrius spoke.

“Dear Miss May, will you play us something?”

She readily acquiesced, and seating herself at the grand piano, which
was open, soon scored a triumph. Her playing was exquisitely finished,
and as her fingers glided over the keys, the consciousness that she
was discoursing music to at least one or two persons who understood
and appreciated it gave her increased tenderness of touch and beauty
of tone. The dreary feeling of utter hopelessness which had pervaded
her, body and soul, when playing to her father and mother, “Ma” asleep
on the sofa, and “Pa” hidden behind a newspaper, neither of them
knowing or caring what composer’s work she performed, was changed to
a warm, happy sense of the power to give pleasure, and the ability to
succeed--and when she had finished a delicately wild little sonata of
Grieg’s, pressing its soft, half-sobbing final chord as daintily and
hushfully as she would have folded a child’s hands in sleep, a murmur
of real rapture and surprised admiration came from all her hearers.

“But you are an artiste!” exclaimed the Baroness Rousillon. “You are a
professional _virtuoso_, surely?”

“Spare me such an accusation!” laughed Diana. “I don’t think I _could_
play to an audience for money,--it would seem like selling my soul.”

“Ah, there I can’t follow you,” said Chauvet. “That’s much too
high-flown and romantic for me. Why not sell anything if you can find
buyers?”

His little eyes glittered ferret-like between his secretive eyelids,
and Diana smiled, seeing that he spoke ironically.

“This is an age of selling,” he went on. “The devil might buy souls by
the bushel if he wanted them!--(and if there _were_ such a person!) And
as for music!--why, it’s as good for sale and barter nowadays as a leg
of mutton! The professional musician is as eager for gain as any other
merchant in the general market,--and if the spirit of Sappho sang him a
song from the Elysian fields, he’d sell it to a gramophone agency for
the highest bid. And _you_ talk about ‘selling your soul!’ dear Madame,
with a thousand pardons for my _brusquerie_, you talk nonsense! How do
you know you have a soul to sell?”

Before she could reply, Dimitrius interposed,--his face was shadowed by
a stern gravity.

“No jesting with that subject, Professor!” he said. “You know my
opinions. Sacred things are not suited for ordinary talk,--the issues
are too grave,--the realities too absolute.”

Chauvet coughed a little cough of embarrassment, and took out a pair
of spectacles from his pocket, polished them and put them back again
for want of something else to do. The Marchese Farnese looked up,--his
expression was eager and watchful--he was on the alert. But nothing
came of his expectancy.

“Play to us again, Miss May,” continued Dimitrius in gentler accents.
“You need be under no doubt as to the existence of _your_ soul when you
can express it so harmoniously.”

She coloured with pleasure, and turning again to the piano played the
“Prélude” of Rachmaninoff with a _verve_ and passion which surprised
herself. She could not indeed explain why she, so lately conscious of
little save the fact that she was a solitary spinster “in the way”
of her would-be juvenile father, and with no one to care what became
of her, now felt herself worthy of attention as a woman of talent
and individuality, capable of asserting herself as such wherever she
might be. The magnificent chords of the Russian composer’s despairing
protest against all insignificance and meanness, rolled out from under
her skilled finger-tips with all the pleading of a last appeal,--and
everyone in the room, even Dimitrius himself, sat, as it were,
spellbound and touched by a certain awe. An irresistible outburst of
applause greeted her as she carried the brilliant finale to its close,
and she rose, trembling a little with the nervous and very novel
excitement of finding her musical gifts appreciated. Professor Chauvet
got up slowly from his chair and came towards her.

“After that, you may lead me where you like!” he said. “I am tame and
humble! I shall never disagree with a woman who can so express the
pulsations of a poet’s brain,--for that is what Rachmaninoff has put
in his music. Yes, _chère Anglaise_!--I never flatter--and you play
superbly. May I call you _chère Anglaise_?”

“If it pleases you to do so!” she answered, smiling.

“It does please me--it pleases me very much”--he went on--“it is a
sobriquet of originality and distinction. An Englishwoman of real
talent is precious--therefore rare. And being rare, it follows that she
is dear--even to me! _Chère Anglaise_, you are charming!--and if both
you and I were younger I should risk a proposal!”

Everyone laughed,--no one more so than Diana.

“You must have had considerable training to be such a proficient on the
piano?” inquired Farnese, with his look of almost aggressive curiosity.

“Indeed no!” she replied at once. “But I have had a good deal of time
to myself one way and the other, and as I love music, I have always
practised steadily.”

“We must really have an ‘afternoon’ in Geneva,” said the Baroness
Rousillon then. “You must be heard, my dear Miss May! The Genevese are
very intelligent--they ought to know what an acquisition they have to
their musical society----”

“Oh, no!” interrupted Diana, anxiously--“Please! I could not play
before many people----”

“No,--like everything which emanates from Spirit, music of the finest
quality is for the few,” said Dimitrius. “‘Where two or three are
gathered together there am I in the midst of them’--is the utterance of
all god-like Presences. Only two or three can ever understand.”

Diana thanked him mutely by a look, and conversation now became
general. In a very short time the little party broke up, and Dimitrius
accompanied his guests in turn to the door. The Rousillons took Farnese
with them in their automobile,--Professor Chauvet, putting on a most
unbecoming and very shabby great-coat, went on his way walking--he
lived but half-a-mile or so further up the road.

“In a small cottage, or châlet,”--he explained--“A bachelor’s hermitage
where I shall be happy to see you, Miss May, if you ever care to come.
I have nothing to show you but books, minerals and a few jewels--which
perhaps you might like to look at. Strange jewels!--with histories and
qualities and characteristics--is it not so, Dimitrius?”

Dimitrius nodded.

“They have their own mysteries, like everything else,” he said.

Diana murmured her thanks for the invitation and bade him
good-night,--then, as he went out of the room with his host, she
turned to Madame Dimitrius and with a gentle, almost affectionate
consideration, asked if she could do anything for her before going to
bed.

“No, my dear!” answered the old lady, taking her hand and patting it
caressingly. “It’s kind of you to think about me--and if I want you
I’ll ask you to come and help an old woman to be more useful than she
is! But wait a few minutes--I know Féodor wishes to speak to you.”

“I have not displeased him, I hope, in any way?” Diana said, a little
anxiously. “I felt so ‘at home,’ as it were, that I’m afraid I spoke a
little too frankly as a stranger----”

“You spoke charmingly!” Madame assured her--“Brightly, and with perfect
independence, which we admire. And need I say how much both my son and
I appreciated your quickness of perception and tact?”

She laid a slight emphasis on the last word. Diana smiled and
understood.

“People are very inquisitive,” went on Madame. “And it is better to
let them think you are a friend and guest of ours than the person for
whom my son has been advertising. That advertisement of his caused a
great deal of comment and curiosity,--and now that he has said he has
withdrawn it and that he does not expect to be suited, the gossip will
gradually die down. But if any idea had got about that _you_ were
the result of his search for an assistant, you would find yourself
in an embarrassing position. You would be asked no end of questions,
and our charming Baroness Rousillon would be one of the first to make
mischief--but thanks to your admirable self-control she is silenced.”

“Will anything silence her?” and Dimitrius, entering, stood for a
moment looking at his mother and Diana with a smile. “I doubt it! But
Miss May is not at all the kind of woman the Baroness would take as
suitable for a scientific doctor’s assistant,--fortunately. She is not
old enough.”

“Not old enough?” and Diana laughed. “Why, what age ought I to be?”

“Sixty at least!” and he laughed with her. “The Baroness is a great
deal older than you are, but she still subjugates the fancy of some
men. Her idea of a doctor’s private secretary or assistant is a kind of
Macbeth’s witch, too severely schooled in the virtues of ugliness to
wear rose-coloured chiffon!”

Diana flushed a little as he gave a meaning glance at her graceful
draperies,--then he added:

“Come out for a moment in the loggia,--moonlight is often talked about
and written about, but it seldom gives such an impression of itself as
on an early autumn night in Switzerland. Come!”

She obeyed,--and as she followed him to the marble loggia where the
fountains were still playing, an irresistible soft cry of rapture
broke from her lips. The scene she looked upon was one of fairy-like
enchantment,--the moonlight, pearly pure, was spread in long broad
wings of white radiance over the lawns in front of the Château, and
reaching out through the shadows of trees, touched into silver the
misty, scarcely discernible peaks of snow-mountains far beyond. A deep
silence reigned everywhere--that strange silence so frequently felt in
the vicinity of mountains,--so that when the bell of the chiming clock
set in the turret of the Château struck eleven, its sound was almost
startling.

“This would be a night for a sail on the lake,” said Dimitrius. “Some
evening you must come.”

She made no reply. Her soul was in her eyes--looking, looking wistfully
at the beauty of the night, while all the old, unsatisfied hunger ached
at her heart--the hunger for life at its best and brightest--for the
things which were worth having and holding,--and absorbed in a sudden
wave of thought she hardly remembered for the moment where she was.

“Millions of people look at this moon to-night without seeing it,” said
Dimitrius, after a pause, during which he had watched her attentively.
“Millions of people live in the world without knowing anything about
it. They,--_themselves_,--are to them, the universe. Like insects,
they grub for food and bodily satisfaction,--like insects, they die
without having ever known any higher aim of existence. Yet, looking
on such loveliness as this to-night, do you not feel that something
more lasting, more real than the usual mode of life _was_ and _is_
intended for us? Does it not seem a flaw in the Creator’s plan that
this creation should be invested with such beauty and perfection for
human beings who do not even see it? Do we make the utmost of our
capabilities?”

She turned her eyes away from the moonlit landscape and looked at him
with rather a sad smile.

“I cannot tell--I do not know,” she answered. “I am not skilled in
argument. But what almost seems to me to be the hardest thing in life
is, that we have so little time to learn or to understand. As children
and as very young people we are too brimful of animal spirits to think
about anything,--then, when we arrive at ‘mature years’ we find we
are ‘shelved’ by our fellow-men and women as old and unwanted. Women
especially are sneered at for age, as if it were a crime to live beyond
one’s teens.”

“Only the coarsest minds and tongues sneer at a woman’s age,” said
Dimitrius. “They are the pigs of the common stye, and they must grunt.
I see you have suffered from their grunting! That, of course, is
because you have not put on the matrimonial yoke. You might get as old
as the good Abraham’s wife, Sara, without a sneer, so long as you had
become legitimately aged through waiting on the moods and caprices of a
husband!” He laughed, half ironically,--then drawing nearer to her by a
step, went on in a lower tone:

“What would you say if you could win back youth?--not only the youth of
your best days, but a youth transfigured to a fairness and beauty far
exceeding any that you have ever known? What would you give, if with
that youth you could secure an increased mental capacity for enjoying
it?--an exquisite vitality?--a delight in life so keen that every beat
of your heart should be one of health and joy?--and that you should
hold life itself”--here he paused, and repeated the words slowly--“that
you should hold life itself, I say, in a ceaseless series of vibrations
as eternal as the making and re-making of universes?”

His dark eyes were fixed upon her face with an intensity of meaning,
and a thrill ran through her, half of fear, half of wonderment.

“What would I say?--what would I give? You talk like another
Mephistopheles to a female Faustus!” she said, forcing a laugh. “I
would not give my soul, because I believe I have a soul, and that it is
what God commands me to keep,--but I would give everything else!”

“Your soul is part of your life,” said Dimitrius. “And you could not
give that without giving your life as well. I speak of _holding your
life_,--that is to say, _keeping it_. Understand me well! The soul is
the eternal and indestructible pivot round which the mechanism of the
brain revolves, as the earth revolves round the sun. The soul imparts
all light, all heat, all creation and fruition to the brain, though
it is but a speck of radiant energy, invisible to the human eye, even
through the most powerful lens. It is the immortal embryo of endless
existences, and in whatsoever way it instructs the brain, the brain
should be in tune to respond. That the brain seldom responds _truly_,
is the fault of the preponderating animalism of the human race. If you
can follow me, still listen!”

She listened indeed,--every sense alert and braced with interest.

“All ideas, all sentiments, all virtues, all sins, are in the cells of
the brain,” he went on. “The soul plays on these cells with vibrating
touches of light, just as you play on the notes of the piano, or
as a typist fingers the keyboard of the machine. On the quality or
characteristic of the soul depends the result. Youth is in the cells of
the brain. Should the cells become dry and withered, it is because the
soul has ceased to charge them with its energy. But when this is the
case, it is possible--I say it is possible!--for science to step in.
The spark can be re-energised,--the cells can be re-charged.”

Diana caught her breath. Was he mad?--or sane with a sanity that
realises a miracle? She gazed at him as though plunging her eyes into a
well of mystery.

He smiled strangely. “Poor lady of mature years!” he said. “You have
heard me, have you not? Well, think upon what I have said! I am not
mad, be assured!--I am temperate in reason and cool in blood. I am
only a scientist, bent on defying that Angel at the gate of Eden with
the flaming sword who ‘keeps the way of the Tree of Life,’ lest men
should take and eat and live for ever! It would not do for men in the
aggregate to live for ever, for most of them are little more than
mites in a cheese,--but as the Prophet Esdras was told: ‘This present
world is made for the many, but the world to come for the few.’ That
‘world to come’ does not mean a world _after_ death--but the world
of _here_ and _now_--a world ‘for the few’ who know how to use _it_,
and themselves!--a world where the same moonlight as this shines like
a robe of woven pearl spread over all human ugliness and ignorance,
leaving only God’s beauty and wisdom! Look at it once more!--make a
picture of it in your mind!--and then--good-night!”

She raised her eyes to the dense purple of the sky, and let them wander
over the lovely gardens, drenched in silver glory--then extended her
hand.

“Thank you for all you have told me,” she said. “I shall remember it.
Good-night!”




CHAPTER XI


The next day Diana entered upon her work,--and for a fortnight
following she was kept fully employed. But nothing mysterious,
nothing alarming or confusing to the mind was presented for her
contemplation or co-operation. Not once was she called upon to enter
the laboratory where the strange wheel whirled at the bidding of the
influence of light, going faster or slower, according to the ascension
or declension of the sun; and not once did Dimitrius refer to the
subject of his discourse with her on that first moonlight night of her
arrival. Her knowledge of Latin and Greek stood her in good stead,
for she was set to translate some musty rolls of vellum, on which
were inscribed certain abstruse scientific propositions of a thousand
years old,--problems propounded by the Assyrians, and afterwards
copied by the Latins, who for the most part, had left out some of the
original phraseology, thereby losing valuable hints and suggestions,
which Dimitrius was studying to discover and replace. Diana was a
careful, clever, and devotedly conscientious worker; nothing escaped
her, and she shirked no pains to unravel the difficulties, which to
less interested students, might have seemed insuperable. Much as she
desired to know more of Dimitrius himself and his own special line of
research, she held her peace and asked no questions, merely taking
his instructions and faithfully doing exactly as she was told. She
worked in the great library where he had at first received her, and
where the curious steel instrument she had noticed on entering, swung
to and fro continuously, striking off a pin’s point of fire as it
moved. Sometimes in the pauses of her close examination of the faded
and difficult Latin script on which all her energies were bent, she
would lift her eyes and look at this strange object as though it were
a living companion in the room, and would almost mentally ask it to
disclose its meaning; and one morning, impelled by a sudden fancy, she
put her watch open on the table, and measured the interval between one
spark of fire and the next. She at once found that the dots of flame
were struck off with precision at every second. They were, in fact,
seconds of time.

“So that, if one had leisure to watch the thing,” she mused, “one would
know that when sixty fire-flashes have flown into air, one minute has
passed. And I wonder what becomes of these glittering particles?”

She knew well enough that they did not perish, but were only absorbed
into another elemental organism. She had observed, too, that the
movement of the whole machine, delicately balanced on its crystal
pedestal, was sharp and emphatic when the sun was at the meridian,
and more subdued though not less precise in the afternoon. She had
very little opportunity, however, to continue a long watching of this
inexplicable and apparently meaningless contrivance after midday, as
then her hours of work were considered over and she was free to do as
she liked. Sometimes she remained in her own apartments, practising her
music, or reading,--and more often than not she went for a drive out
into the open country with Madame Dimitrius with the light victoria
and pair, which was a gift from Dimitrius to his mother, who could
not be persuaded to drive in a motor-car. It was a charming turn-out,
recognised in the neighbourhood as “the Doctor’s carriage”--for though
Geneva and its environs are well supplied with many professors of
medicine and surgery, Dimitrius seemed at this period to have gained a
reputation apart from the rest as “the” doctor, _par excellence_. Once
Diana asked him whether he had a large practice? He laughed.

“None at all!” he replied. “I tell everybody that I have retired
from the profession in order to devote all my time to scientific
research--and this is true. But it does not stop people from sending
for me at a critical moment when all other efforts to save a life have
failed. And then of course I do my best.”

“And are you always successful?” she went on.

“Not always. How can I be? If I am sent for to rescue a man who has
overfed and over-drunken himself from his youth onwards, and who, as
a natural consequence, has not a single organ in his body free from
disease, all my skill is of no avail--I cannot hinder him from toppling
into the unconsciousness of the next embryo, where, it is to be hoped,
he will lose his diseases with his fleshy particles. I can save a
child’s life generally--and the lives of girls and women who have not
been touched by man. The life-principle is very strong in these,--it
has not been tampered with.”

He closed the conversation abruptly, and she perceived that he had no
inclination to talk of his own healing power or ability.

After about a month or six weeks at the Château Fragonard, Diana began
to feel very happy,--happier than she had ever been in her life. Though
she sometimes thought of her parents, she knew perfectly that they
were not people to grieve long about any calamity,--besides which,
her “death” was not a calamity so far as they were concerned. They
would call it such, for convention’s sake and in deference to social
and civil observances--but “Ma” would console herself with a paid
“companion-housekeeper”--and if that companion-housekeeper chanced
to be in the least good-looking or youthful, “Pa” would blossom out
into such a juvenility of white and “fancy” waistcoats and general
conduct as frequently distinguishes elderly gentlemen who are loth
to lose their reputation for gallantry. And Diana wasted no time
in what would have been foolish regret, had she felt it, for her
complete and fortunate severance from “home” which was only home to
her because her duty made her consider it so. A great affection had
sprung up between her and Madame Dimitrius; the handsome old lady
was a most lovable personality, simple, pious, unaffected, and full
of a devotion for her son which was as touching as it was warm and
deep. She had absolute confidence in him, and never worried him by
any inquisitiveness concerning the labours which kept him nearly all
day away from her, shut up in his laboratory, which he alone had the
secret of opening or closing. Hers was the absolute reliance of “the
perfect love which casteth out fear;” all that he did was right and
_must_ be right in her eyes,--and when she saw how whole-heartedly and
eagerly Diana threw herself into the tedious and difficult work he
had put before her to do, she showed towards that hitherto lonely and
unloved woman a tenderness and consideration to which for years she
had been unaccustomed. Very naturally Diana responded to this kindness
with impulsive warmth and gratitude, and took pleasure in performing
little services, such as a daughter might do, for the sweet-natured and
gentle lady whose friendship and sympathy she appreciated more and more
each day. She loved to help her in little household duties,--to mend
an occasional tiny hole in the fine old lace which Madame generally
wore with her rich black silk gowns,--to see that her arm-chair and
foot-stool were placed just as she liked them to be,--to wind the wool
for her knitting, and to make her laugh with some quaint or witty
story. Diana was an admirable _raconteuse_, and she had a wonderful
memory,--moreover, her impressions of persons and things were tinged
with the gaiety of a perceptive humour. Sometimes Dimitrius himself,
returning from a walk or from a drive in his small open auto-car,
would find the two sitting together by a cheerful log fire in the
drawing-room, laughing and chatting like two children, Diana busy with
her embroidery, her small, well-shaped, white hands moving swiftly and
gracefully among the fine wools from which she worked her “Jacobean”
designs, and his mother knitting comforts for the poor in preparation
for the winter which was beginning to make itself felt in keen airs and
gusts of snow. On one of these occasions he stood for some minutes on
the threshold, looking at them as they sat, their backs turned towards
him, so that they were not at once aware of his presence. Diana’s head,
crowned with its bright twists of hair, was for the moment the chief
object of his close attention,--he noted its compact shape, and the
line of the nape of the neck which carried it--a singularly strong
and perfect line, if judged by classic methods. It denoted health
and power, with something of pride,--and he studied it anatomically
and physiologically with all the interest of a scholar. Suddenly
she turned, and seeing him apparently waiting at the door, smiled a
greeting.

“Do you want me?” she asked.

He advanced into the room.

“Ought I to want you?” he counter-queried. “These are not working
hours! If you were a British workman such an idea as my wanting you
‘out of time’ would never enter your head! As a British working
_woman_, you should stipulate for the same privileges as a British
working man.”

He drew a chair to the fire, and as his mother looked at him with
loving, welcoming eyes, he took her hand and kissed it.

“Winter is at hand,” he continued, giving a stir with the poker to the
blazing logs in the grate. “It is cold to-day--with the cold of the
glaciers, and I hear that the snow blocks all the mountain passes. We
are at the end of October--we must expect some bitter weather. But in
Switzerland the cold is dry and bracing--it strengthens the nerves and
muscles and improves the health. How do you stand a severe winter, Miss
May?”

“I have never thought about it,” she answered. “All seasons have beauty
for me, and I have never suffered very much by either the cold or the
heat. I think I have been more interested in other things.”

He looked at her intently.

“What other things?”

She hesitated. A faint colour stole over her cheeks.

“Well,--I hardly know how to express it--things of life and death. I
have always been rather a suppressed sort of creature--with all my aims
and wishes pent up,--pressed into a bottle, as it were, and corked
tight!” She laughed, and went on. “Perhaps if the cork were drawn there
might be an explosion! But, wrongly or rightly, I have judged myself
as an atom of significance made _in_significant by circumstances and
environment, and I have longed to make my ‘significance,’ however
small, distinct and clear, even though it were only a pin’s point of
meaning. If I said this to ordinary people, they would probably exclaim
‘How dull!’ and laugh at me for such an idea----”

“Of course!--dull people would laugh,” agreed Dimitrius. “People in the
aggregate laugh at most things, except lack of money. That makes them
cry--if not outwardly, then inwardly. But I do not laugh,--for if you
can forget heat and cold and rough weather in the dream of seeking to
discover your own significance and meaning in a universe where truly
nothing exists without its set place and purpose, you are a woman
of originality as well as intelligence. But that much of you I have
already discovered.”

She glanced at him brightly.

“You are very kind!”

“Now do you mean that seriously or ironically?” he queried, with a
slight smile. “I am not really ‘very kind’--I consider myself very
cruel to have kept you chained for more than a month to rolls of vellum
inscribed with crabbed old Latin characters, illegible enough to
bewilder the strongest eyes. But you have done exceedingly well,--and
we have all three had time to know each other and to like each other,
so that a harmony between us is established. Yes--you have done more
than exceedingly well----”

“I am glad you are pleased,” said Diana, simply, resting one hand on
her embroidery frame and looking at him with somewhat tired, anxious
eyes. “I was rather hoping to see you this evening, though it is,
as you say, after working hours, for I wanted very much to tell you
that the manuscript I am now deciphering seems to call for your own
particular attention. I should prefer your reading it with me before I
go further.”

“You are very conscientious,” he said, fixing his eyes keenly upon
her--“Is she not, mother mine? She is afraid she will learn something
important and necessary to my work before I have a chance to study it
for myself. Loyal Miss Diana!”

Madame Dimitrius glanced wistfully from her son to Diana, and from
Diana back to her son again.

“Yes, she is loyal, Féodor! You have found a treasure in her,” she
said--“I am sure of it. It seems a providence that she came to us.”

“Is it not Shakespeare who says, ‘There’s a special providence in the
fall of a sparrow’?” he queried lightly. “How much more ‘special’ then
is the coming of a Diana!”

It was the first time he had used her Christian name without any
ceremonious prefix in her presence, and she was conscious of a thrill
of pleasure, for which she instantly reproached herself. “I have no
business to care what or how he calls me,” she thought. “He’s my
employer,--nothing more.”

“Diana,” repeated Dimitrius, watching her narrowly from under his
now half-shut eyelids. “Diana is a name fraught with beautiful
associations--the divine huntress--the goddess of the moon! Diana, the
fleet of foot--the lady of the silver bow! What poets’ dreams, what
delicate illusions, what lovely legends are clustered round the name!”

She looked at him, half amused, half indifferent.

“Yes,--it is a thousand pities I was ever given such a name,” she
said. “If I were a Martha, a Deborah or a Sarah, it would suit me much
better. But Diana! It suggests a beautiful young woman----”

“You were young once!” he suggested, meaningly.

“Ah, yes, once!” and she sighed. “Once is a long time ago!”

“I never regret youth,” said Madame Dimitrius. “My age has been much
happier and more peaceful. I would not go back to my young days.”

“That is because you have fulfilled your particular destiny,”
interposed her son,--“You fell in love with my father--what happy times
they must have been when the first glamour of attraction drew you both
to one another!--you married him,--and I am the result! Dearest mother,
there was nothing more for you to do, with your devoted and gentle
nature! You became the wife of a clever man,--he died, having fulfilled
_his_ destiny in giving you--may I say so?--a clever son,--myself! What
more can any woman ask of ordinary nature?”

He laughed gaily, and putting his arm round his mother, fondled her as
if she were a child.

“Yes, beloved!--you have done all your duty!” he went on. “But you
have sacrificed your own identity--the thing that Miss Diana calls her
‘significance.’ You lost that willingly when you married--all women
lose it when they marry:--and you have never quite found it again. But
you _will_ find it! The slow process of evolution will make of you a
‘fine spirit’ when the husk of material life is cast off for wider
expansion.”

As he spoke, Diana looked at mother and son with the odd sense of being
an outside spectator of two entirely unconnected identities,--the one
overpowering and shadowing the other, but wholly unrelated and more or
less opposed in temperament. Madame Dimitrius was distinguished by an
air of soft and placid dignity, made sympathetic by a delicate touch
of lassitude indicative of age and a desire for repose, while Féodor
Dimitrius himself gave the impression of a strong energy restrained and
held within bounds as a spirited charger is reined and held in by his
rider, and, above all, of a man aware of his own possibilities and full
of set resolve to fulfil them.

“Is that embroidery of a very pressing nature?” he suddenly said, then,
with a smile. “Or do you think you could spare a few moments away from
it?”

She at once put aside her frame and rose.

“Did I not ask you when you came in if you wanted me?” she queried.
“Somehow I was quite sure you did! You know I am always ready to serve
you if I can.”

He still had one arm round his mother,--but he raised his eyes and
fixed them on Diana with an expression which was to her new and strange.

“I know you are!” he said, slowly. “And I shall need your service in a
difficulty--very soon! But not just now. I have only a few things to
say which I think should not be put off till to-morrow. We’ll go into
the library and talk there.”

He bent down and kissed his mother’s snowy and still luxuriant hair,
adding for her benefit:

“We shall not be long, dearest of women! Keep warm and cosy by the
fire, and you will not care for the ‘significance’ of yourself so long
as you are loved! That is all some women ask for,--love.”

“Is it not enough?” said Diana, conscious of her own “asking” in that
direction.

“Enough? No!--not half or quarter enough! Not for some women or some
men--they demand more than this (and they have a right to demand more)
out of the infinite riches of the Universe, Love,--or what is generally
accepted under that name, is a mere temporary physical attraction
between two persons of opposite sex, which lessens with time as it
is bound to lessen because of the higher claims made on the soul,--a
painful thing to realise!--but we must not shiver away from truth like
a child shivering away from its first dip in the sea, or be afraid of
it. Lovers forget lovers, friends forget friends, husbands forget wives
and _vice versa_,--the closest ties are constantly severed----”

“You are wrong, Féodor--we do _not_ forget!” said Madame Dimitrius,
with tender reproach in her accents. “I do not forget your father--he
is dear to me as lover and husband still. And whether God shall please
to send my soul to heaven or to hell, I could never forget my love for
_you!_”

“Beloved, I know!--I feel all you say--but you are an exception to
the majority--and we will not talk personalities! I cannot”--here he
laughed and kissed her hand again--“I cannot have my theories upset by
a _petite Maman_!”

He left the room then and Diana followed him. Once in the library he
shut the door and locked it.

“Now you spoke of something in your translations that seemed to call
for my attention,” he said. “I am ready to hear what it is.”

Diana went to the table desk where she habitually worked, and took up
some pages of manuscript, neatly fastened together in readable form.

“It is a curious subject,” she said. “In the Assyrian originals it
seems to have been called ‘The problem of the Fourth, Sixth and
Seventh, culminating in the Eighth.’ Whether the Latin rendering truly
follows the ancient script, it is, of course, impossible to say,--but
while deciphering the Latin, I came to the conclusion that the Fourth,
Sixth and Seventh were named in the problem as ‘rays’ or ‘tones’ of
light, and the proposed culmination of the Eighth----”

“Stop!” exclaimed Dimitrius, in a strained, eager voice. “Give me your
papers!--let me see!”

She handed them to him at once, and he sat down to read. While he was
thus occupied, her gaze constantly wandered to the small, scythe-like
instrument mowing off the seconds in dots of flame as a mower sweeps
off the heads of daisies in the grass. A curious crimson colour seemed
to be diffused round the whole piece of mechanism,--an effect she
had never noticed before, and then she remembered it was late in the
afternoon and that the sun had set. The rosy light emanating from the
instrument and deeply reflected in the crystal pedestal on which it
was balanced, seemed like an after-glow from the sky,--but the actual
grey twilight outside was too pronounced and cold to admit of such an
explanation.

Suddenly Dimitrius looked up.

“You are right!” he said. “This ancient problem demands my closest
study. And yet it is no problem at all, but only an exposition of
my inmost thought!” He paused,--then: “Come here, Diana May!” he
continued--“I may as well begin with you. Come and sit close beside me.”

She obeyed. With his eyes fixed upon her face, he went on:

“You, as a woman of superior intelligence, have never supposed, I am
sure, that I have secured your services merely to decipher and copy
out old Latin script? No!--I see by your look that you have fully
realised that such is not all the actual need I have of you. I have
waited to find out, by a study of your character and temperament, when
and how I could state plainly my demands. I think I need not wait much
longer. Now this ancient treatise on ‘Problems,’ obscure and involved
in wording as it is, helps me to the conviction that I am on the right
track of discovery. It treats of Light. ‘The problem of the Fourth,
Sixth and Seventh,’ with its ‘ultimate culmination of the Eighth’ is
the clue. In that ‘ultimate culmination’ is the Great Secret!”

His eyes flashed,--his features were transfigured by an inward fervour.

“Have the patience to follow me but a little,” he continued. “You have
sense and ability and you can decipher a meaning from an apparent chaos
of words. Consider, then, that within the limitations of this rolling
ball, the earth, we are permitted to recognise seven tones of music
and seven tones of colour. The existing numbers of the creative sum,
so far as we can count them, are Seven and Five, which added together
make Twelve, itself a ‘creative’ number. Man recognises in himself Five
Senses, Touch, Taste, Sight, Hearing, Smell--but as a matter of fact
he has Seven, for he should include Intuition and Instinct, which are
more important than all the others as the means of communicating with
his surroundings. Now ‘the culmination of the Eighth’ is neither Five
nor Seven nor Twelve,--it is the close or rebound of the Octave--the
end of the leading Seven--the point where a fresh Seven begins. It is
enough for humanity to have arrived at this for the present--for we
have not yet sounded the heights or depths of even the _first_ Seven
radiations which we all agree to recognise. We admit seven tones of
music, and seven tones of colour, but what of our seven rays of light?
We have the ‘violet ray,’ the ‘X ray’--and a newly discovered ray
showing the working bodily organism of man,--but there are _Seven_
Rays piercing the density of ether, which are intended for the use and
benefit of the human being, and which are closely connected with his
personality, his needs and his life. Seven Rays!--and it is for us to
prove and test them all!--which is the very problem you have brought to
my notice in this old Latin document: ‘the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh,
culminating in the Eighth.’”

He put the papers carefully together on the table beside him, and
turned to Diana.

“You have understood me?”

She bent her head.

“Perfectly!”

“You recall the incidents of the first day of your arrival here?--your
brief visit to my laboratory, and what you saw there?”

She smiled.

“Do you think I could ever forget?”

“Well!--that being so I do not see why I should wait,” he said,
musingly, and speaking more to himself than to her. “There is no reason
why I should not begin at once the task which is bound to be long and
difficult! My ‘subject’ is at my disposal--I am free to operate!”

He rose and went to an iron-bound cabinet which he unlocked and took
from thence a small phial containing what appeared to be a glittering
globule like an unset jewel, which moved restlessly to and fro in its
glass prison. He held it up before her eyes.

“Suppose I ask you to swallow this?” he said.

For all answer, she stretched out her hand to take the phial. He
laughed.

“Upon my word, you are either very brave or very reckless!” he
exclaimed--“I hardly know what to think of you! But you shall not
be deceived. This is a single drop of the liquid you saw in process
of distillation within its locked-up cell,--it has a potent, ay,
a terrific force and may cause you to swoon. On the other hand
it may have quite the contrary effect. It _should_ re-vivify--it
_may_ disintegrate,--but I cannot guarantee its action. I know its
composition, but, mark you!--_I have never tested it on any human
creature._ I cannot try it on myself--for if it robbed me of my
capacity to work, I have no one to carry on my researches,--and I would
not try it on my mother,--she is too old, and her life is too precious
to me----”

“Well, my life is precious to nobody,” said Diana, calmly. “Not even to
myself. Shall I take your ‘little dram’ now?”

Dimitrius looked at her in amazement that was almost admiration.

“If you would rather wait a few days, or even weeks longer, do so,” he
answered. “I will not persuade you to any act of this kind in a hurry.
For it is only the first test of many to come.”

“And if I survive the first I shall be good for the last,” said Diana,
merrily. “So come, Doctor Féodor!--give me the mysterious ‘drop’ of
liquid fire!”

Her face was bright with animation and courage--but his grew pale and
haggard with sudden fear. As he still hesitated, she sprang up and took
the phial from his hand.

“Diana! Let me hold you!” he cried, in real agitation--and he caught
her firmly round the waist--“Believe me--there is danger!----But--if
you _will_----”

“One, two, three, and away!” said she, and taking the tiny glass
stopper from the phial she swallowed its contents.

“One, two, three, and away!” it was, indeed!--for she felt herself
whirled off into a strange, dark, slippery vortex of murderous
cold--which suddenly changed to blazing heat--then again to cold,--she
saw giant pinnacles of ice, and enormous clouds of flame rolling upon
her as from a burning sky--then, she seemed to be flying along over
black chasms and striving to escape from a whirlwind which enveloped
her as though she were a leaf in a storm,--till at last no thought, no
personal consciousness remained to her, and, giving up all resistance,
she allowed herself to fall,--down, down ever so far!--when, all at
once a vital freshness and elasticity possessed her as though she had
been suddenly endowed with wings, and she came to herself standing
upright as before, with Dimitrius holding her in the strong grasp of
one arm.

“Well!” she said, aware that she trembled violently, but otherwise not
afraid: “It wasn’t bad! Not much taste about it!”

She saw that he was deadly pale--his eyes were misty with something
like tears in them.

“You brave woman!” he said, in a low tone--“You daring soul!--But--are
you sure you are all right?--Can you stand alone?”

She drew away from his hold.

“Of course! Firm as a rock!”

He looked at her wonderingly,--almost with a kind of terror.

“Thank God!” he murmured--“thank God I have not killed you! If I
had----!”

He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

Still trembling a little as she was, she felt deeply touched by his
evident emotion, and with that sudden, new and surprising sense of
lightness and buoyancy upon her she ran to him and impulsively knelt
down beside him.

“Don’t think of it, please!” she said, entreatingly, her always sweet
voice striking a soothing note on the air--“Don’t worry! All is well!
I’m as alive as I can be. If you had killed me I quite understand you
would have been very sorry,--but it really wouldn’t have mattered--in
the interests of science! The only trouble for you would have been to
get rid of my body,--bodies are always such a nuisance! But with all
your knowledge I daresay you could have ground me into a little heap
of dust!” And she laughed, quite merrily. “Please don’t sit in such
an attitude of despair!--you’re not half cold-hearted enough for a
scientist!”

He raised his head and looked at her.

“That’s true!” he said, and smiled. “But--I wonder what has made you
the strange woman you are? No fear of the unknown!--No hesitation, even
when death might be the result of your daring,--surely there never was
one of your sex like you!”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure there have been, and are many!” she answered,
rising from her knees, and smiling in cheerful response to his happier
expression: “Women are queer things!--and there’s a part of their
‘queerness’ which men never understand. When they’ve lost everything--I
mean everything which they, with their particular nature and sentiment,
regard as precious, the chief of these being love, which _you_ don’t
think matters much to anybody, they get reckless. Some of them take
to drink--others to drugs--others to preaching in the streets--others
to an openly bad life,--or to any crooked paths leading away and
as far as possible from their spoilt womanhood. Men are to blame
for it,--entirely to blame for treating them as toys instead of as
friends--men are like children who break the toys they have done
with. And a woman who has been broken in this way has ‘no fear of the
unknown’ because the known is bad enough,--and she does not ‘hesitate
to face death,’ being sure it cannot be worse than life. At any rate,
that’s how I feel--or, rather, how I _have_ felt;--just now I’m
extraordinarily glad to be alive!”

“That is because you are conscious of a narrow escape,” he said, with a
keen glance at her. “Isn’t it so?”

She considered for a moment.

“No, I don’t believe it is!” she replied. “It’s something quite
different to that. I’m not in the least aware that I’ve had a narrow
escape!--but I _do_ know that I feel as happy as a schoolgirl out for
her first holiday! That’s rather an odd sensation for a woman ‘of
mature years!’ Oh, I know what it is! It’s the globule!”

She laughed, and clapped her hands.

“That’s it! Doctor, you may thank your stars that your first test has
succeeded! Here I am, living!--and _something_ is dancing about in my
veins like a new sort of air and a new sort of sunshine! It’s a lovely
feeling!”

He rose from the chair where he had thrown himself in his momentary
dejection, and approaching her, took her hand and laid his fingers on
her pulse. He had entirely recovered his usual air of settled and more
or less grave composure.

“Yes,” he said, after a pause, “your pulse is firmer--and _younger_.
So far, so good! Now, obey me. Go and lie down in your own room for
a couple of hours. Sleep, if you can,--but, at any rate, keep in a
recumbent position. You have a charming view from your windows,--and
even in a grey autumn twilight like this, there is something soothing
in the sight of the Alpine snow-line. Rest absolutely quiet till
dinner time. And--afterwards--you will tell me how you feel,--or,
rather, I shall be able to judge for myself.” He released her hand,
but before doing so, kissed it with a Russian’s usual courtesy. “I
repeat,--you are a brave woman!--as brave as any philosopher that
ever swallowed hemlock! And, if your courage holds out sufficiently
to endure the whole of my experiment, I shall owe you the triumph and
gratitude of a life-time!”




CHAPTER XII


Once in her own pretty suite of rooms, Diana locked the door of the
_entresol_, so that no one might enter by chance. She wished to be
alone that she might collect her thoughts and meditate on the “narrow
escape” which she had experienced without actually realising any
danger. Her sitting-room was grey with the creeping twilight, and she
went to the window and opened it, leaning out to breathe the snowy
chillness of the air which came direct from the scarcely visible
mountains. A single pale star twinkled through the misty atmosphere,
and the stillness of approaching night had in it a certain heaviness
and depression. With arms folded on the window-sill she looked as far
as her eyes could see--far enough to discern the glimmering white of
the Savoy Alps which at the moment presented merely an outline, as of
foam on the lip of a wave. After a few minutes she drew back and shut
the window, pulling the warm tapestry curtains across it, and pressing
the button which flooded her room with softly-shaded electric light.
Then she remembered--she had been told to rest in a recumbent position,
so, in obedience to this order she lay down on the comfortable sofa
provided for her use, stretching herself out indolently with a sense of
delightful ease. She was not at all in a “lazing” mood, and though she
tried to go to sleep she could not.

“I’m broad awake,” she said to herself. “And I want to think! It isn’t
a case of ‘mustn’t think’ now--I feel I _must_ think!”

And the first phase of her mental effort was her usual one of
“wonder.” Why had she so much confidence in Dimitrius? How was it that
she was quite ready to sacrifice herself to his “experiment”?

“It seems odd,” she argued--“and yet, it isn’t. Because the fact is
plain that I have nothing to live for. If I had any hope of ever being
a ‘somebody’ or of doing anything really useful of course I should care
for my life, but, to be quite honest with myself, I know I’m of no use
to anyone, except to--_him_! And I’m getting a thousand a year and
food and a home--a lovely home!--so why shouldn’t I trust him? If--in
the end--his experiment kills me--as he seemed to think it might, just
now--well!--one can only die once!--and so far as the indifferent folks
at home know or believe, I’m dead already!”

She laughed, and nestled her head cosily back on the silken
sofa-cushions. “Oh, I’m all right, I’m sure! Whatever happens will be
for the best. I’m certainly not afraid. And I feel so well!”

She closed her eyes--then opened them again, like a child who has been
told to go to sleep and who gives a mischievous bright glance at its
nurse to show that it is wide awake. Moving one little slim foot after
the other she looked disapprovingly at her shoes.

“Ugly things!” she said. “They were bought in the Devonshire
village--flat and easy to get about the house with--suitable for a
housekeeping woman ‘of mature years!’ I don’t like them now! They don’t
seem to suit my feet at all! If I had really ‘turned up my toes to the
daisies’ when I swallowed that mysterious globule these shoes would not
have added to the grace of my exit!”

Amused at herself she let her thoughts wander as they would--and it
was curious how they flew about like butterflies settling only on
the brightest flowers of fancy. She had grown into a habit of never
looking forward to anything--but just now she found herself keenly
anticipating a promised trip to Davos during the winter, whither
she was to accompany Dimitrius and his mother. She was a graceful
skater--and a skating costume seemed suggested--why not send her
measurements to Paris and get the latest? A pleasant vision of rich,
royal blue cloth trimmed with dark fur flitted before her--then she
fancied she could hear her father’s rasping voice remarking: “Choose
something strong and serviceable--linsey-woolsey or stuff of that
kind--your mother used to buy linsey-woolsey for her petticoats, and
they _never_ wore out. You should get that sort of material--never mind
how it _looks_!--only very young people go in for mere fashion!”

She indulged in a soft little giggle of mirth at this reminiscence of
“Pa,” and then with another stretch out of her body, and a sense of
warmest, deepest comfort, she did fall asleep at last--a sleep as sweet
and dreamless as that of a child.

She was roused by a knocking at the door of the _entresol_, and sprang
up, remembering she had locked it. Running to open it, she found the
_femme-de-chambre_, Rose, standing outside.

“I am so sorry to disturb Madame,” said the girl, smiling. “But there
is only now a quarter of an hour to dinnertime, and Monsieur Dimitrius
sent me to tell you this, in case you were asleep.”

“I _was_ asleep!” and Diana twisted up a tress of her hair which had
become loosened during her slumber. “How dreadfully lazy of me! Thank
you, Rose! I won’t be ten minutes dressing.”

While she spoke she noticed that Rose looked at her very curiously
and intently, but made no remark. Passing into the rooms, the maid
performed her usual duties of drawing blinds, closing shutters and
turning on the electric lights in the bedroom,--then, before going, she
said:

“Sleep is a great restorer, Madame! You look so much better for an
afternoon’s rest!”

With that she retired,--and Diana hurried her toilette. She was in such
haste to get out of her daily working garb into a “rest gown” that she
never looked in the mirror till she began to arrange her hair, and
then she became suddenly conscious of an alteration in herself that
surprised her. What was it? It was very slight--almost too subtle to
be defined,--and she could not in the least imagine where the change
had occurred, but there was undoubtedly a difference between the face
that had looked at her from that same mirror some hours previously
and the one that looked at her now. It was no more than the lightest
touch given by some great painter’s brush to a portrait--a touch which
improves and “lifts” the whole expression. However, she had no time to
wait and study the mystery,--minutes were flying, and the silver arrow
of the warning dial pointed to the figure eight, and its attendant
word “Dinner.” Even as she looked, the chime struck the hour,--so she
almost jumped into a gown of pale blue, chosen because it was easy to
put on, and pinning a few roses from one of the vases in her room among
the lace at her neck, she ran downstairs just in time to see Dimitrius
taking his mother on his arm, as he always did when there were no
guests, into the dining-room. She followed quickly with the murmured
apology:

“I’m so sorry to be late!”

“Never mind, my dear,” said Madame Dimitrius. “Féodor tells me you have
had some hard work to do, and that he wished you to rest. I hope you
slept?”

But, as she put the question, her eyes opened widely in a sudden
expression of wonderment, and she gazed at Diana as though she were
something very strange and new.

“Yes, she must have slept, I think,” put in Dimitrius quietly and with
marked emphasis. “She looks thoroughly rested.”

But Madame Dimitrius was still preoccupied by thoughts that bewildered
her. She could hardly restrain herself while the servant Vasho was in
the room, and the moment he left it to change the courses, she began:

“Féodor, don’t you see a great difference----”

He made her a slight warning sign.

“Dear Mother, let us defer questions till after dinner! Miss Diana! To
your health!” And he held up his glass of champagne towards her. “You
are looking remarkably well!--and both my mother and I are glad that
the air of Switzerland agrees with you!”

Half pleased, half puzzled, Diana smiled her recognition of the
friendly toast, but in her own mind, wondered what it all meant? Why
did dear old Madame Dimitrius stare at her so much? Why did even Vasho,
the negro servant, roll the whites of his eyes at her as though she
were somebody he had never seen before? And taking these things into
account, why did Dimitrius himself maintain such an indifferent and
uninterested demeanour?

Nevertheless, whatever the circumstances might portend, she was more
disposed to mirth than gravity, and the delicious _timbre_ of her
voice made music at table, both in speaking and laughter,--the music
of mingled wit and eloquence, rare enough in a man, but still rarer
in a woman. Very few women have the art of conversing intelligently,
and at a dinner nowadays the chief idea seems to be to keep on “safe”
ground, avoiding every subject of any real interest. But Diana was
not particular in this regard,--she talked, and talked well. On this
evening she seemed to throw herself with greater zest into the always
for her congenial task of keeping her mysterious “employer” and his
mother amused,--and Dimitrius himself began to feel something of the
glamour of a woman’s fascination against which he had always been as
he boasted--“spirit-proof.” His was a curious and complex nature. For
years and years, ever since his early boyhood, he had devoted himself
to the indefatigable study of such arts and sciences as are even now
regarded as only “possible,” but “non-proven,”--and he had cut himself
off from all the ordinary ambitions as well as from the social customs
and conventions of the world, in order to follow up a certain clue
which his researches had placed in his hands. Though his ultimate
intention was to benefit humanity he was so fearful of miscalculating
one line of the mathematical problem he sought to solve, that for the
time being, humanity weighed as nothing in his scale. He would admit
of no obstacle in his path, and though he was not a cruel man, if
he had found that he would need a hundred human “subjects” to work
upon, he would have killed them all without compunction, had killing
been necessary to the success of his experiments. And yet,--he had
a heart, which occasionally gave him trouble as contending with his
brain,--for the brain was cool and calculating, and the heart was warm
and impulsive. He had never actually shunned women, because they too,
as well as men, were needful points of study,--but most of the many he
had met incurred his dislike or derision because of what he considered
their unsettled fancies and general “vagueness.” His mother he adored;
but to no other woman had he ever accorded an atom of really deep or
well-considered homage. When he advertised for a woman to help him in
his experimental work, he did so, honestly because he judged a woman,
especially “of mature years,” was of no particular use to anybody, or,
if she did happen to be of use, she could easily be replaced. With an
almost brutal frankness, he had said to himself: “If the experiment I
make upon her should prove fatal, she will be the kind of human unit
that is never missed.”

But Diana was an unexpected sort of “unit.” Her independence, clear
perception and courage were a surprise to him. Her “mature years” did
not conceal from him the fact that she had once been charming to look
at,--and one point about her which gave him especial pleasure was her
complete resignation of any idea that she could have attraction for men
at her age. He knew how loth even the oldest women are to let go this
inborn notion of captivating or subjugating the male sex,--but Diana
was wholesomely free from any touch of the “volatile spinster,”--and
unlike the immortal Miss Tox in “Dombey and Son,” was not in the least
prone to indulge in a dream of marriage with the first man who might
pay her a kindly compliment. And his dread of the possible result of
his first experimental essay upon her was perfectly genuine, while
his relief at finding her none the worse for it was equally sincere.
Looking at her now, and listening to her bright talk and to the soft
ripple of her low, sweet laughter, his thoughts were very busy. She was
his “subject;” a living subject bound by her signed agreement to be
under his command and as much at his disposal as a corpse given over
for anatomical purposes to a surgeon’s laboratory. He did not propose
to have any pity upon her, even if at any time her condition should
call for pity. His experiment must be carried out at all costs. He did
not intend to have any more “heart” for her than the vivisector has
for the poor animal whose throbbing organs he mercilessly probes;--but
to-night he was conscious of a certain attraction about her for which
he was not prepared. He was in a sense relieved when dinner was over,
and when she and his mother left the room. As soon as they had gone he
addressed Vasho:

“Did you see?”

The negro inclined his head, and his black lips parted in a smile.

“It is the beginning!” said Dimitrius, meditatively. “But the end is
far off!”

Vasho made rapid signs with his fingers in the dumb alphabet. His words
were:

“The Master will perhaps be over-mastered!”

Dimitrius laughed, and patted the man kindly on the shoulder.

“Vasho, you are an oracle! How fortunate you are dumb! But your ears
are keen,--keep them open!”

Vasho nodded emphatically, and with his right hand touched his forehead
and then his feet, signifying that from head to foot he was faithful to
duty.

And Dimitrius thereupon went into the drawing-room, there to find Diana
seated on a low stool beside his mother’s chair, talking animatedly
about their intended visit to Davos Platz. Madame Dimitrius instantly
assailed him with the question she had previously started at dinner.

“Féodor, you put me off just now,” she said, “but you really must tell
me if you see any change in Diana! Look at her!”--and she put one hand
under Diana’s chin and turned her face more up to the light--“Isn’t
there a very remarkable alteration in her?”

Dimitrius smiled.

“Well, no!--not a very remarkable one,” he answered, with affected
indifference. “A slight one,--certainly for the better. All doctors
agree in the opinion that it is only after a month or two in a
different climate that one begins to notice an improvement in health
and looks----”

“Nonsense!” interrupted his mother, with a slight touch of impatience.
“It’s not that sort of thing at all! It’s something quite different!”

“Well, what _is_ it?” laughed Diana. “Dear, kind Madame Dimitrius!--you
always see something nice in me!--which is very flattering but which I
don’t deserve! You are getting used to my appearance--that’s all!”

“You are both in league against me!” declared the old lady, shaking her
head. “Féodor knows and _you_ know that you _are_ quite different!--I
mean that you have a different expression--I don’t know what it is----”

“I’m sure _I_ don’t!” Diana said, still laughing. “I feel very well and
very happy--much better than I have felt for a long time--and of course
if one _feels_ well one looks well----”

“Did you feel as well and happy a few hours ago, when you left me to go
and do some work for Féodor?” asked Madame. “You did not look then as
you look now!”

Diana glanced at Dimitrius questioningly, mutely asking what she should
say next. He gave her a reassuring smile.

“You are like a Grand Inquisitor, mother mine!” he said. “And sharp
as a needle in your scrutiny! Perhaps you are right!--Miss May _is_
a little altered. In fact I think I may acknowledge and admit the
fact--but I’m sure it is so slight a change that she has scarcely
noticed it herself. And when she has retired and gone to bed, you and I
will have a little private talk about it. Will that satisfy you?”

She looked at him trustfully and with a great tenderness.

“I am not unsatisfied even now, my son!” she answered, gently--“I am
only curious! I am like the lady in the fairy tale of ‘Blue Beard’--I
want to unlock your cupboard of mystery! And you won’t cut my head off
for that, will you?”

He laughed.

“I would sooner cut off my own!” he said, gaily. “Be sure of that! You
shall know all that is needful, in good time! Meanwhile, Miss Diana
had better leave us for the present”--Diana at once rose and came
towards him to say good-night--“I hope I am not giving you too abrupt a
dismissal,” he added, “but I think, under the circumstances, you should
get all the rest you can.”

She bent her head in mute obedience, thanking him with a smile. As she
turned with a softly breathed “good-night” to Madame Dimitrius, the old
lady drew her close and kissed her.

“Bless you, my dear!” she said. “If you change in your looks, do not
change in your heart!”

“That can hardly be guaranteed,” said Dimitrius.

Diana looked at him.

“Can it not? But I will be my own guarantee,” she said. “I shall not
change--not in love for my friends. Good-night!”

As she left the room they both looked after her,--her figure had a
supple, swaying grace of movement which was new and attractive, and in
an impulse of something not unlike fear, Madame Dimitrius laid her hand
entreatingly on her son’s arm.

“What have you done to her, Féodor? What are you doing?”

His eyes glittered with a kind of suppressed menace.

“Nothing!” he answered. “Nothing, as yet! What I _shall_ do is another
matter! I have begun--and I cannot stop. She is my subject,--I am like
that old-world painter, who, in sheer devotion to his art, gave a slave
poison, in order that he might be able to watch him die and so paint a
death-agony accurately.”

“Féodor!” She gave a little cry of terror.

“Do not be afraid, mother mine! My task is an agony of birth--not
death!--the travail of a soul reconstituting the atoms of its earthly
habitation,--recharging with energy the cells of its brain--the work of
a unit whose house of clay is beginning to crumble, and to whom I give
the material wherewith to build it up again! It all depends, of course,
on the unit’s own ability,--if you break a spider’s web, the mending
of it depends on the spider’s industry, tenacity and constructive
intelligence,--but, whatever happens, mark you!--_whatever_ happens, I
have begun my experiment, and I must go on! I must go on to the very
end,--no matter what that end may be!”

She looked at him in wonder and appeal.

“You will not,--you cannot be cruel, Féodor?” she said, in a voice
which trembled with suppressed alarm. “You will not injure the poor
woman who works for you so patiently, and who trusts you?”

“How can I tell whether I shall or shall not injure her?” he demanded,
almost fiercely. “Science accepts no half service. The ‘poor woman,’
as you call her, knows her risks and has accepted them. So far, no
injury has been done. If I succeed, she will have cause to thank me for
the secret I have wrenched from Nature,--should I fail, she will not
complain very much of a little more hurried exit from a world, where,
according to her own statement, she is alone and unloved.”

Madame Dimitrius clasped and unclasped her delicate old hands
nervously, and the diamonds in a ring she wore glittered scarcely more
than the bright tears which suddenly fell from her eyes. Moved by a
pang of remorse, he fell on his knees beside her.

“Why, mother!” he murmured, soothingly--“you should not weep! Can
you not trust me? This woman, Diana May, is a stranger, and nothing
to you. Certainly she is a kind, bright creature, with a great many
undeveloped gifts of brain and character, which make her all the
more useful to me. I give her as much chance as I give myself. If I
let her alone,--that is to say, if I ignore all the reasons for which
I engaged her, and allow her to become a mere secretary, or your
domestic companion,--she goes on in the usual way of a woman of her
years,--withering slowly--sinking deeper in the ruts of care, and
fading into a nonentity for whom life is scarcely worth the living. On
the other hand, if I continue my work upon her----”

“But _what_ work?” asked his mother, anxiously. “What result do you
expect?”

He rose from his kneeling attitude, and straightened himself to his
full height, lifting his head with an unconscious air of defiance and
pride.

“I expect Nature to render me obedience!” he said. “I expect the
surrender of the Flaming Sword! It ‘turns every way to keep the way of
the Tree of Life’--but the hilt must be given into _my_ hand!”

“Féodor! Oh, my son! Such arrogance is blasphemy!”

“Blasphemy? Mother, you wrong yourself and me by the thought! Blasphemy
is a lie to God, like the utterance of the ‘Credo’ by people who do
_not_ believe,--but there is no blasphemy in searching for a truth as
part of God’s mind, and devoutly accepting it _when_ found! The priest
who tells his congregation that God is to be pleased or pacified by
sufficient money in the collection plate blasphemes,--but I who most
humbly adore His unspeakable Beneficence in placing the means of health
and life in our hands, and who seek to use those means intelligently,
do _not_ blaspheme! I praise God with all my heart,--I believe in Him
with all my soul!”

His attitude at the moment was superb; his expression as of one
inspired. His mother looked at him fondly, but the tears were still in
her eyes.

“Féodor,” she said at last tremulously--“I--I have grown fond of
Diana. I shall not be able to look on and see her suffer!”

He bent his brows upon her almost sternly.

“When you _do_ see her suffer it will be time to speak”--he
answered--“Not before! And whatever else you see, having no connection
with ‘suffering’ in any way, you must allow to pass without comment or
inquiry. You love me, I know,--well, you will never prove your love
for me more than by consenting to this. If at any moment you can tell
me that Diana May is unhappy or in pain, I promise you I will do my
best to spare her. But if nothing of this sort happens I rely on your
silence and discretion. May I do so?”

She inclined her head gently.

“You may!”

He took her hand and kissed its soft, finely wrinkled whiteness.

“That’s my kind mother!” he said, tenderly--“Always indulgent to me
and my fancies as you have been, I know you will not fail me now!
And so,--whatever change you observe or _think_ you observe in my
‘subject,’ you must accept it as perfectly natural (for it will be) and
not surprising or disturbing. And you must tactfully check the comments
and questions of others. I foresee that Chauvet will be tiresome,--he
has taken a great fancy to Diana. And Farnese, of course, is a
perpetual note of interrogation. But these people must be kept at a
distance. You have grown fond of Diana, you say,--fond of this complete
stranger in our house!--but I am glad of it, for she needs some sort
of tenderness in a life which seems to have been exceptionally lonely.
Grow still fonder of her, if you like!--indeed, it is probable you
will. For though she is anything but a child, she has all a child’s
affection in her which apparently has been wasted, or has met with
scant return.”

“You think so?” And Madame Dimitrius looked up with a smile.

“I do think so, assuredly, but because I think so it does not follow
that any return can come from _me_,” he said. “You are a person of
sentiment--I am not. _You_ are the one to supply her with the manna
which falls from the heaven of a loving heart. And by doing so you will
help my experiment.”

“You will not tell me what the experiment really is?” she asked.

“No. Because, if it fails I prefer to ridicule myself rather than
that you should ridicule me. And if I succeed the whole value of my
discovery consists in keeping it secret.”

“Very well!” And his mother rose and put away her knitting. “You shall
do as you will, Féodor!--you were always a spoilt boy and you will be
spoilt to the end! My fault, I know!”

“Yes, your fault, beloved!” he said--“But a fault of instinctive
knowledge and wisdom! For if you had not let me follow my own way I
might not have stumbled by chance on another way--a way which leads----”

He broke off abruptly with a wonderful “uplifted” look in his eyes. She
came to him and laid her gentle hands upon his shoulders.

“A way which leads--where, my Féodor? Tell me!”

He drew her hands down and held them warmly clasped together in his.

“The way to that ‘new heaven and new earth’ where God is with men!” he
answered, in a low, rapt tone--“‘Where there shall be no more death,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,’ and where ‘the
former things are passed away!’ Be patient with my dream! It may come
true!”




CHAPTER XIII


Meantime, Diana, up in her own room, was engaged in what to her had, of
late years, been anything but an agreeable pastime,--namely, looking
at herself in the mirror. She was keenly curious to find out what was
the change in her appearance which had apparently surprised Madame
Dimitrius so much that she could hardly be restrained, even by her
masterful son, from expressing open wonderment. She stood before the
long cheval glass, gazing deeply into it as if it were the magic mirror
of the “Lady of Shalott,” and as if she saw

    “The helmet and the plume
    Of bold Sir Lancelot.”

Her face was serious,--calmly contemplative,--but to herself she
could not admit any positive change. Perhaps the slightest suggestion
of more softness and roundness in the outline of the cheeks and an
added brightness in the eyes might be perceived,--but this kind of
improvement, as she knew, happened often as a temporary effect of
something in the atmosphere, or of a happier condition of mind, and
was apt to vanish as rapidly as it occurred. Still looking at herself
with critical inquisitiveness, she slipped out of her pale blue
gown and stood revealed in an unbecoming gauntness of petticoat and
camisole,--so gaunt and crude in her own opinion that she hastened to
pull the pins out of her hair, so that its waving brightness might fall
over her scraggy shoulders and flat chest and hide the unfeminine
hardness of these proportions. Then, with a deep sigh, she picked up
her gown from the floor where she had let it fall, shook out its folds
and hung it up in the wardrobe.

“It’s all nonsense!” she said. “I’m just the same thin old thing as
ever! What difference Madame Dimitrius can see in me is a mystery! And
_he_----”

Here, chancing to turn her head rather quickly from the wardrobe
towards the mirror again, she saw the charming profile of--a pretty
woman!--a woman with fair skin and a sparkling eye that smiled in
opposition to the gravity of rather set lip-lines,--and the suddenness
of this apparition gave her quite a nervous start.

“Who is it?” she half whispered to the silence,--then, as she moved her
head again and the reflection vanished, “Why, it’s me! I do believe
it’s me!”

Amazed, she sat down to think about it. Then, with a hand-glass she
tried to recapture the vision, but in vain!--no position in which she
now turned gave just the same effect.

“It’s enough to drive one silly!” she said--“I won’t bother myself any
more about it. The plain truth is that I’m better in health and happier
in mind than I’ve ever been, and of course I look as I feel. Only the
dear Madame Dimitrius hasn’t noticed it before--and he?--well, he never
notices anything about me except that I do his work well, or well
enough to suit him. If his mysterious ‘globule’ had killed me, I wonder
whether he would have been really sorry?”

She considered a moment,--then shook her head in a playful negative
and smiled incredulously. She finished undressing, and throwing a warm
boudoir wrap about her, a pretty garment of pale rose silk lined with
white fur which had been a parting gift from her friend Sophy Lansing,
and which, as she had declared, was “fit for a princess,” she went into
her sitting-room, where there was a cheerful wood fire burning, and sat
down to read. Among the several books arranged for her entertainment on
a row of shelves within reach of the hand, was one old one bearing the
title: “Of the Delusions whereby the Wisest are Deluded”--and the date
1584. Taking this down she opened it haphazard at a chapter headed:
“Of the Delusion of Love.” It was written in old style English with
many quaint forms of expression, more pointed and pithy than our modern
“newspaper slang.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“How many otherwise sober and sane persons are there,” soliloquised
the ancient author--“who nevertheless do pitifully allow themselves
to be led astray by this passion, which considered truly, is no more
than the animal attraction of male for female, and female for male, no
whit higher than that which prevails in the insect and brute world. For
call it Love as they will, it is naught but Lust, as low an instinct or
habit as that of craving for strong liquor or any wherewithall to still
the insatiate demands of uncontrolled appetite. Love hath naught to do
with Lust,--for Love is a Principle, not a Passion. For this cause it
is comforting to read in Holy Scripture that in Heaven there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage, for there we are as the angels. And to
be as the angels implyeth that we shall live in the Principle and not
in the Passion. Could we conceive it possible on this earth for such an
understanding to be arrived at between two persons of intelligence that
they should love each other in this highest sense, then there would
be no satiety in their tenderness for one another, and the delicacies
of the soul would not be outraged by the coarseness of the body. It
is indeed a deplorable and mournful contemplation, that we should be
forced to descend from the inexpressible delights of an imagined ideal
to the repulsive condition of the material stye, and that the fairest
virgin, bred up softly, with no rougher composition of spirit than that
of a rose or a lily, should be persuaded by this delusion of ‘love’ to
yield her beauties to the deflowering touch which destroys all maidenly
reserve, grace and modesty. For the familiarity of married relations
doth, as is well known, put an end to all illusions of romance, and
doth abase the finest nature to the gross animal level. And though it
is assumed to be necessary that generations should be born without
stint to fill an already over-filled world, meseemeth the necessity is
not so great as it appeareth. Wars, plagues and famines are bred from
the unwisdom of over-population, for whereas the over-production of
mites in a cheese do rot the cheese, so doth the over-production of
human units rot the world. Therefore it is apparent to the sage and
profound that while the material and animal portion of the race may
very suitably propagate their kind, they having no higher conception of
their bodies or their souls, the more intelligent and cleanly minority
of purer and finer temperament may possibly find the way to a nobler
and more lasting ‘love’ than that which is wrongfully called by such a
name,--a love which shall satisfy without satiating, and which shall
bind two spirits so harmoniously in one, that from their union shall be
born an immortal offspring of such great thoughts and deeds as shall
benefit generations unborn and lead the way back to the lost Paradise!”

Here Diana let the book fall in her lap, and sat meditating, gazing
into the hollows of the wood fire. Love! It was the thing she had
longed for,--the one joy she had missed! To be loved,--to be “dear to
someone else” seemed to her the very acme of all desirable attainment.
For with Tennyson’s hero in “Maud” she felt:

    “If I be dear to some one else
    I should be to myself more dear.”

Her thoughts went “homing” like doves down the air spaces of memory
to the days when she had, or was fooled into believing she had, a
lover whose love would last,--a bold, splendid creature, with broad
shoulders and comely countenance, and “eyes which looked love to eyes
that spake again,”--and when, as the betrothed bride of the Splendid
Creature, she had thanked God night and morning for giving her so
much happiness!--when the light in the skies and the flowers in the
fields apparently took part in the joyous gratitude of her spirit,
and when the very songs of the birds had seemed for her a special
wedding chorus! She went over the incidents of that far-away period
of her existence,--and presently she began to ask herself what, after
all, did they amount to? Why, when they were all cruelly ended, had
she shed such wild tears and prayed to God in such desperate agony?
Was it worth while to have so shaken her physical and spiritual
health for any Splendid Creature? For what had he done to merit such
passionate regret?--such weeping and wailing? He had kissed her a
great deal (when he was in the mood for kissing), and sometimes more
than she quite cared for. He had embraced her in gusts of brief and
eager passion, tinged with a certain sensuality which roused in her
reluctant repulsion--he had called her by various terms of endearment
such as “sweetest,” “dearest,” and “wood-nymph,” a name he had bestowed
upon her on one occasion when he had met her by chance in a shady
corner of Kew Gardens, and which he thought poetical, but which she
privately considered silly,--but what real meaning could be attached
to these expressions? When, all suddenly, his regiment was ordered to
India, and she had to part from him, he had sworn fidelity, and with
many protestations of utmost tenderness had told her that “as soon as
cash would allow,” he would send for her to join him, and marry her
out there,--and for this happy consummation she had waited, lovingly
and loyally, seven years. Meanwhile his letters grew shorter and
fewer,--till at last, when his father died and he came into a large
fortune, he struck the final blow on the patient life that had been
sacrificed to his humour. He wrote a last letter, telling her he was
married,--and so everything of hope and promise fell away from her like
the falling leaves of a withering flower, though her friend, Sophy
Lansing, in hot indignation at the callous way in which she had been
treated, advised her to “take on another man at once.” But poor Diana
could not do this. Hers was a loyal and tender spirit,--she was unable
to transfer her affections from one to another _au grand galop_. She
thought of it all now in a half amused way, as she sat in her easy
chair by the sparkling fire, in the charming room which she could for
the present call her own, surrounded by every comfort and luxury, and
she looked at her ringless hand,--that small, daintily-shaped hand, on
which for so many wasted years her lover’s engagement ring had sparkled
as a sign of constancy. Poor little hand!--it was shown off with effect
at the moment, lying with a passive prettiness on the roseate silk of
her “boudoir wrap”--as white as the white fur which just peeped beneath
the palm. Suddenly she clenched it.

“I should like to punish him!” she said. “It may be small--it may be
spiteful--but it is human! I should like to see him suffer for his
treachery! I should have no pity on him or his fat wife!” Here she
laughed at herself. “How absurd I am!” she went on--“making ‘much
ado about nothing!’ The fat wife herself is a punishment for him, I’m
sure! He’s rich, and has a big house in Mayfair and five very ugly
children,--_that_ ought to be enough for him! I saw his wife by chance
at a bazaar quite lately--like a moving jelly!--rather like poor mother
in the fit of her clothes,--and smiling the ghastly smile of that
placid, ineffable content which marks the fool! If I could do nothing
else I’d like to disturb that smug, self-satisfied constitution of
oozing oil!--yes, I would!--and who knows if I mayn’t do it yet!”

She rose, and the antique book “Of Delusions” fell to the floor. Her
slim figure, loosely draped in the folds of crimson silk and white
fur, looked wonderfully graceful and well-poised, and had there been
a mirror in the sitting-room, as there was in the bedroom, she might
possibly have seen something in her appearance worthy of even men’s
admiration. But her thoughts were far away from herself,--she had
before her eyes the picture of her old lover grown slightly broader and
heavier in build, with ugly furrows of commonplace care engraven on
his once smooth and handsome face,--“hen-pecked” probably by his stout
better-half and submitting to this frequently inevitable fate with
a more or less ill grace, and again she laughed,--a laugh of purest
unforced merriment.

“Here I am, like Hamlet, ‘exceeding proud and revengeful,’ and after
all I ought to be devoutly thankful!” she said. “For, if I analyse
myself honestly, I do not really consider I have lost anything in
losing a man who would certainly have been an unfaithful husband. What
I _do_ feel is the slight on myself! That he should have callously
allowed me to wait all those years for him, and _then_--have cast
me aside like an old shoe, is an injury which I think I may justly
resent--and which,--if I ever get the chance--I may punish!” Here her
brows clouded, and she sighed. “What an impossible idea! I talk as if I
were young, with all the world before me!--and with power to realise my
dreams!--when really everything of that sort is over for me, and I have
only to see how I can best live out the remainder of life!”

Then like a faint whisper stealing through the silence, came the words
which Dimitrius had spoken on the first night of her arrival--that
night when the moonlight had drenched the garden in a shower of pearl
and silver,--“_What would you give to be young?_”

A thrill ran through her nerves as though they had been played upon
by an electric vibration. Had Dimitrius any such secret as that which
he hinted at?--or was he only deluding himself, and was his brain,
by over much study, slipping off the balance? She had heard of the
wisest scientists who, after astonishing the world by the brilliancy of
their researches and discoveries, had suddenly sunk from their lofty
pinnacles of attained knowledge to the depth of consulting “mediums,”
who pretended to bring back the spirits of the dead that they might
converse with their relatives and friends in bad grammar and worse
logic,--might not Dimitrius be just as unfortunate in his own special
“scientific” line?

Tired at last of thinking, she resolved to go to bed, and in her
sleeping chamber, she found herself facing the long mirror again.
Something she saw there this time appeared really to startle her, for
she turned abruptly away from it, threw off her wrap, slipped into her
night-gown, and brushed her hair hastily without looking at herself for
another second. And kneeling at her bedside as she said her prayers she
included an extra petition, uttered in a strangely earnest whisper:

“From all delusions of vanity, self-love and proud thinking, good Lord,
deliver me!”

The next morning she awoke, filled and fired with a new resolve. She
had slept well and was strong in energy and spirit, and she determined,
as she expressed it to herself, to “have it out” with Dr. Dimitrius. So
after breakfast, when he was about to go to his laboratory as usual,
she stopped him on the way.

“I want to speak to you,” she said. “Please give me a few moments of
your time.”

“Now?” he queried, with a slight uplifting of his eyebrows.

She bent her head.

“Now!”

“In the library, then,” he said, and thither they went together.

On entering the room he closed the door behind them and stood looking
at her somewhat quizzically.

“Well?”

“Well!” she echoed, slightly smiling. “Are you wondering what I want to
say? You ought not to wonder at all,--you ought to know!”

“I know nothing!” he answered--“I may guess--but guessing is risky. I
prefer to hear.”

“So you _shall_ hear,”--and she drew a little closer to him--“If I
express myself foolishly you must tell me,--if you think me officious
or over-bold, you must reprove me--there is only one thing I will not
bear from you, and that is, want of confidence!”

He looked at her in something of surprise.

“Want of confidence? My dear Miss Diana, you surely cannot complain on
that score! I have trusted you more than I have ever trusted any man or
any woman----”

“Yes,” she interrupted him, quickly--“I know that wherever it is
absolutely necessary to trust me you have done so. But where you think
it is _un_-necessary, you have not. For example--why don’t you tell me
just straight what you mean to do with me?”

His dark, lustrous eyes flashed up under their drooping lids.

“What I mean to do with you?” he repeated--“Why what do you imagine----”

“I imagine nothing,” she answered, quietly. “The things you teach are
beyond all imagination! But see!--I have signed myself and my services
away to you for a certain time, and as you have yourself said, you did
not engage me merely to copy old Latin script. What you really want of
me is, as I begin to understand, just what the vivisector wants with
the animal he experiments upon. If this is so, I offer no opposition. I
am not afraid of death--for I am out of love with life. But I want to
know your aims--I want to understand the actual thing you are striving
for. I shall be better able to help you if I know. You put me through
one test yesterday--you saw for yourself that I had no fear of the
death or life properties of the thing I took from your hand without
any hesitation--I have not even spoken of the amazing and terrifying
sensations it gave me--I am ready to take it again at any moment. You
have a willing servant in me--but, as I say, I feel I could help you
more if I knew the ultimate end for which you work,--and you must trust
me!”

He listened attentively to every word,--charmed with the silvery
softness of her voice and its earnest yet delicate inflections.

“I _do_ trust you!” he said, when she had ceased speaking. “If I did
not, you would not be here a day. I trusted you from the moment I saw
you. If I had not, I should never have engaged you. So be satisfied on
that score. For the rest--well!--I confess I have hesitated to tell you
more than (as you put it) seemed necessary for you to know,--the old
fear and the narrow miscomprehension of woman is still inherent in me,
as in all of my sex, though I do my best to eliminate it,--and I have
thought that perhaps if I told you all my intentions with regard to
yourself, you might, at the crucial moment, shrink back and fail me----”

“When I shrink from anything you wish me to do, or fail in my
undertaking to serve you loyally, I give you leave to finish me off in
any way you please!” she said, calmly--“and without warning!”

He smiled--but his eyes were sombre with thought.

“Sit down,” he said, and signed to her to take a chair near the window.
“I will tell you as much as I can--as much as I myself know. It is
briefly said.”

He watched her closely, as, in obedience to his wish, she seated
herself, and he noted the new and ardent brilliance in her eyes which
gave them a look of youthful and eager vitality. Then he drew up
another chair and sat opposite to her. Outside the window the garden
had a wintry aspect--the flowerbeds were empty,--the trees were
leafless, and the summits of the distant Alps peered white and sharp
above a thick, fleece-like fog which stretched below.

“You say you are out of love with life,” he began. “And this, only
because you have been spared the common lot of women--the so-called
‘love’ which would have tied you to one man to be the drudge of
his coarse passions till death. Well!--I admit it is the usual
sort of thing life offers to the female sex,--but to be ‘out of
love’ with the stupendous and beautiful work of God because this
commonest of commonplace destinies has been denied you, is--pardon my
_brusquerie_,--mere folly and unreasoning sentiment. However, I am
taking you at your word,--you are ‘out of love’ with life, and you are
not afraid of death. Therefore, to me you are not a woman--you are
a ‘subject’:--you put it very clearly just now when you said that I
need you as the vivisector needs the animal he experiments upon--that
is perfectly correct. I repeat, that for my purpose, you are not a
woman,--you are simply an electric battery.”

She looked up, amazed--then laughed as gaily as a child.

“An electric battery!” she echoed. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! I have imagined
myself as many things, but never _that_!”

“And yet that is what you really _are_,” he said, unmoved by her
laughter. “It is what we all are, men and women alike. Our being is
composed of millions of cells, charged with an electric current which
emanates from purely material sources. We make electricity to light
our houses with--and when the battery is dry we say the cells need
recharging--a simple matter. Youth was the light of _your_ house of
clay--but the cells of the battery are dry--they must be recharged!”

She sat silent for a moment, gazing at him as though seeking to read
his inmost thought. His dark, fine eyes met hers without flinching.

“And you,--you propose to recharge them?” she said, slowly and
wonderingly.

“I not only propose to do it--I have already begun the work!” he
answered. “You want me to be straightforward--come, then!--give me
the same confidence! Can you honestly say you _see_ no difference and
_feel_ no difference in yourself since yesterday?”

She gave a quick sigh.

“No, I cannot!” she replied. “I _do_ see and feel a change in myself!
This morning I was almost terrified at the sense of happiness which
possessed me!--happiness for nothing but just the joy of living!--it
overwhelmed me like a wave!” She stretched out her arms with a gesture
of indefinable yearning--“Oh, it seemed as if I had all the world in my
hands!--the light, the air, the mere facts of breathing and moving were
sufficient to make me content!--and I was overcome by the fear of my
own joy! That is why I determined to ask you plainly what it means, and
what I am to expect from you!”

“If all goes well you may expect such gifts as only the gods of old
time were able to give!” he said, in thrilling accents,--“Those poor
gods! They represented the powers that have since been put into man’s
hands,--their day is done! Now, listen!--I have told you that I have
commenced my work upon you,--and you are now the centre of my supreme
interest. You are precisely the ‘subject’ I need,--for, understand
me well!--if you had led a ‘rackety’ life, such as our modern women
do--if you had been obsessed by rabid passions, hysterical sentiments,
greedy sensualities or disordered health, you would have been no use
to me. Your ‘cells,’ speaking of you as a battery, would, under such
conditions, have been worn out, and in a worn-out state could not have
been recharged. The actual renewal, or perpetual germination of cells
is a possibility of future science,--but up to the present we have
not arrived at the right solution of the problem. Now, perhaps, you
understand why I was to some extent startled when you took that first
‘charge’ from my hand yesterday,--it was a strong and a dangerous
test,--for if one or any of your ‘cells’ had been in a broken or
diseased state it might have killed you instantly--as instantly as by a
flash of lightning----”

“And if it had,” interrupted Diana, with a smile--“what would you have
done?”

“I should have disposed of your remains,” he answered, coolly. “And I
should have arranged things so that no one would have been any the
wiser--not even my mother.”

She laughed.

“You really are a first-class scientist!” she said. “No pity--no
remorse--no regret----!”

His eyes flashed up in a sort of defiance.

“Who could feel pity, remorse, or regret for the fate of one miserable
unit,” he exclaimed--“one atom among millions, sacrificed in the
pursuit of a glorious discovery that may fill with hope and renewed
power the whole of the human race! Tens of thousands of men are slain
in war and the useless holocaust is called a ‘Roll of Honour,’ but if
one superfluous woman were killed in the aid of science it would be
called murder! Senseless hypocrisy!--The only thing to regret would
be failure! Failure to achieve result,--horrible! But success!--what
matter if a hundred thousand women perished, so long as we possess the
Flaming Sword!”

He spoke with an almost wild excitation, and Diana began to think he
must be mad. Mad with a dream of science,--mad with the overpowering
force and flow of ideas too vast for the human brain!

“Why,” she asked, in purposely cold and even tones--“have you chosen a
woman as your ‘subject’? Why not a man?”

“A man would attempt to become my rival,” he answered at once. “And he
would not submit to coercion without a struggle. It is woman’s nature
instinctively to bend under the male influence,--one cannot controvert
natural law. Woman does not _naturally_ resist; she yields. I told you
I wanted obedience and loyalty from you,--I knew you would give them.
You have done so, and now that you partially know my aims I know you
will do so still.”

“I shall not fail you,” said Diana, quietly. “But,--if I may know as
much,--suppose you succeed in your idea of recharging the ‘cells’
which make up Me, what will be the result to Myself?”

“The result to yourself?” he repeated. “Little can you imagine
it!--little will you believe it even if I attempt to describe it! What
will it mean to you, I wonder, to feel the warmth and vigour of early
youth once more tingling in your veins?--the elasticity and suppleness
of youth in your limbs?--to watch the delicate and heavenly magic of a
perfect beauty transfiguring your face to such fairness that it shall
enchant all beholders!----”

“Stop,--stop!” cried Diana, almost angrily, springing up from her chair
and putting her hands to her ears. “This is mere folly, Dr. Dimitrius!
You talk wildly,--and unreasonably! You must be mad!”

“Of course I am mad!” he answered, rising at the same moment and
confronting her--“As mad as all original discoverers are! As mad as
Galileo, Newton, George Stephenson or Madame Curie! And I am one with
them in the madness that makes for a world’s higher sanity! Come, look
at me!” and he took both her hands firmly in his own--“Honestly, can
you say I am mad?”

His eyes, dark and luminous, were steadfast and frank as the eyes of
a faithful animal,--his expression serious,--even noble. As she met
his calm gaze the colour flushed her cheeks suddenly, then as quickly
faded, leaving her very pale.

“No--I cannot!” she said, swiftly and humbly. “Forgive me! But you deal
with the impossible!”

He loosened her hands.

“Nothing is impossible!” he said. “Whatsoever the brain of a man
conceives in thought can be born in deed. Otherwise there would be
a flaw in the mathematics of the Universe, which is a thing utterly
inconceivable.” He paused,--then went on. “I have told you all that you
wished to know. Are you satisfied?”

She looked at him, and a faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

“If you are satisfied, I am,” she replied. “What I seem to understand
is this,--if you succeed in your experiment I shall feel and look
younger than I do now,--we will leave the ‘beauty’ part out of it,--and
if you fail, the ‘cells’ you have begun to charge with your mysterious
compound, will disintegrate, and there’ll be an end of me?”

“You have put the case with perfect accuracy,” he said. “That is so.”

“Very well! I am prepared!”--and she went to the table desk where she
usually worked--“and now I’ll go on deciphering Latin script.”

She seated herself, and, turning over the papers she had left, began to
write.

An odd sense of compunction came over him as he looked at her and
realised her courage, patience, and entire submission to his will, and
yet--his careful and vigilant eye noted the improved outlines of cheek
and chin, the delicate, almost imperceptible softening of the lately
thin and angular profile,--and the foretaste of a coming scientific
triumph was stronger in him than any other human feeling. Nevertheless
she was a woman, and----

Moved by a sudden impulse, he approached and bent over her as she
worked.

“Diana,” he said, very softly and kindly--“you will forgive me if I
have seemed to you callous, or cruel?”

Her heart beat quickly--she was annoyed with herself at the nervous
tremor which ran through her from head to foot.

“I have nothing to forgive,” she answered, simply--“I am your paid
‘subject,’--not a woman at all in your eyes. And being so, I am content
to live--or die--in your service.”

He hesitated another moment,--then possessing himself of the small
hand that moved steadily across the paper on which she was writing, he
dexterously drew the pen from it and raised it to his lips with a grave
and courteous gentleness. Then, releasing it, without look or word he
went from the room, treading softly, and closing the door behind him.




CHAPTER XIV


So she knew! She knew that, as usual, she was, personally, a valueless
commodity. So far as herself, her own life and feelings were concerned,
her fate continued to follow her--no one was kindly or vitally
interested in her,--she was just a “subject” for experiment. She had
suspected this all along--yet now that she had heard the fact stated
coldly and dispassionately, she was more or less resentful. She waited
a few minutes, her heart beating quickly and the vexed blood rising
to her brows and making her cheeks burn,--waited till she was sure
Dimitrius would not re-enter,--then, suddenly flinging down her pen,
she rose and paced the room hurriedly to and fro, scarce knowing
what she did. Was it not hard,--hard! she said to herself, with an
involuntary clenching of her hands as she walked up and down, that she
should never be considered more than a passive “thing” to be used for
other folks’ advantage or convenience? How had it happened that no one
in all the world had ever thought of putting himself (or herself) to
“use” for _Her_ sake! The calm calculations of Féodor Dimitrius on her
possible death under his treatment had (though she would not admit it
to herself) inwardly hurt her. Yet, after all, what had she any right
to expect? She had answered a strange, very strange advertisement, and
through that action had come into association with the personality of
a more than strange man of whose character and reputation she knew
little or nothing. And, so far, she had “fallen on her feet,”--that
is to say, she had secured a comfortable home and handsome competence
for the services she had pledged herself to render. Then, as she had
taken the whole thing on trust had she any cause to complain of the
nature of those services? No!--and in truth she did not complain,--she
only _felt_--felt, to the core of her soul the callous indifference
which Dimitrius had plainly expressed as to her fate in the dangerous
“experiment” he had already commenced upon her. Hot tears sprang to her
eyes,--she struggled with them, ashamed and humiliated.

“Children and girls cry!” she said, with self-contempt. “I, being
a woman ‘of mature years,’ ought to know better! But, oh, it is
hard!--hard!”

Her thoughts flew to Madame Dimitrius,--had she followed her first
feminine impulse, she would have run to that kind old lady and asked
for a little pity, sympathy and affection!--but she knew such an act
would seem weak and absurd. Still walking up and down, her steps
gradually became more measured and even,--with one hand against her
eyes, she pressed away the tear drops that hung on her lashes--then,
pausing, looked again, as she so often looked at the never stopping
steel instrument that struck off its little fiery sparks with an almost
wearisome exactitude and monotony. Stretching out her hand, she tried
to catch one of the flying dots of flame as one would catch a midge or
a moth,--she at last succeeded, and the glowing mote shone on her open
palm like a ruby for about half a minute--then vanished, leaving no
trace but a slight tingling sensation on the flesh it had touched.

“A mystery!” she said--“as involved and difficult to understand as my
‘master’ himself!”

She looked through the window at the grey-cold winter landscape, and
let her eyes travel along the distant peaks of the Alpine ranges, where
just now the faintest gleam of sunshine fell. The world,--the natural
world--was beautiful!--but how much more beautiful it would seem if
one had the full heart and vigour to enjoy its beauty! If, with youth
to buoy up the senses, one had the trained eye and mind to perceive
and appreciate the lovely things of life!--could one ask for greater
happiness?

“When we are quite young we hardly see Nature,” she mused. “It is only
in later years that we begin to find out how much we have missed. Now,
if I, with my love of beauty, were young----”

Here her meditations came to an abrupt halt. Had not Dimitrius
promised that if he succeeded in his experiment, youth would be hers
again?--youth, united to experience?--but would that be a desirable
result? She wondered.

“The old, old story!” she sighed. “The old legend of Faust and the
devil!--the thirst of mankind for a longer extension of youth and
life!--only, in my case, I have not asked for these things, nor have I
tried to summon up the devil. I am just an unwanted woman,--unwanted so
far as the world is concerned, but useful just now as a ‘subject’ for
the recharging of cells!”

She gave a half weary, half scornful gesture, and resumed her work,
and for an hour or more sat patiently translating and writing. But her
thoughts were rebels and went breaking into all manner of unfamiliar
places,--moreover, she herself felt more or less rebellious and
disposed to fight against destiny. At midday the sun, which had been
teasing the earth with shy glimpses of glory all the morning, shone out
superbly, and set such a coronal of light on her hair as she sat at her
desk, that if she could have seen herself she might have been flattered
at the effect. But she was only conscious of the brightness that filled
the room--a brightness that equally took possession of her mind and
filled her with cheerfulness. She even allowed herself a little run
into the realms of fancy.

“Suppose that he _should_ succeed in his perfectly impossible task,”
she said. “I,--his ‘subject’--shall have him in my power! I never
thought of that! Yet it’s worth thinking about! I shall have given him
the triumph of his life! He will set some value upon me then,--and
he’ll never be able to forget me! More than that, according to his
own assertion, I shall be young!--and he spoke of beauty too!--all
nonsense, of course--but if!--if!--if he makes _me_ the crowning
success of all his studies, I shall hold him in the hollow of my hand!”

Stimulated by this thought, she sprang up and stood proudly erect, a
smile on her lips and radiance in her eyes.

“With all his learning, his calculations and his cold-blooded
science,--yes--I shall hold him in the hollow of my hand!”

Recalling herself to her duties, she put all her papers and writing
materials neatly away in order for the next morning’s work, and leaving
the library, went out in the garden for a turn in the fresh air before
luncheon. The noonday sunshine was at the full, and her whole being
responded to its warmth and brightness. A new outlook had presented
itself to her view, and all hesitation, vexation, fear and depression
vanished like a mist blown aside by the wind. She was entirely resolved
now to go through with whatsoever strange ordeals Dimitrius might
ordain, no matter how much physical or mental suffering she might have
to endure.

“The die is cast!” she said, gaily--addressing herself to a group of
pine trees stiff with frost--“I’m all for youth and beauty!--or--Death!
On, on, Diana!”

That afternoon she went off for a walk by herself as it was frequently
her custom to do. She was allowed perfect freedom of action after the
morning working hours,--she could go and come as she liked,--and
both Dr. Dimitrius and his mother made it plainly evident that they
trusted her implicitly. She avoided Geneva--she instinctively felt
that it would be wiser not to be seen there, as the people of the
hotel where she had stayed might recognise her. One of her favourite
walks was along the Mornex road to a quaint little villa occupied
by Professor Chauvet. This somewhat grim and ironical man of much
learning had taken a great fancy to her, and she always made herself
charming in his company, partly out of real liking for him and partly
out of compassion for his loneliness. For, apparently, he had no one
in the world to care whether he lived or died, the only person to
attend upon him being a wrinkled, toothless old woman from the Canton
Grisons, whose cooking was execrable, while her excessive cleanliness
was beyond reproach. Diana loved to hear the Professor’s half-cynical,
half-kindly talk,--she laughingly encouraged him to “lay down the law,”
as he delighted to do, on all things human and divine, and she was
never tired of turning over his really unique and wonderful collection
of unset gems, of which he had enough to excite the cupidity of any
American wife of a millionaire,--enough certainly to make him rich,
though he lived in the style of an exceedingly poor man.

“You have the saddest fire I ever saw!” she said, on this particular
afternoon, as she entered his study without warning, as she was now
quite accustomed to do, and found him sitting absorbed over a book,
regardless of the smouldering wood in the grate which threatened to
become altogether extinguished. “Let me make it cheerful for you!”

She set to work, while he pushed his spectacles up from his eyes to his
forehead and regarded her with unassisted vision.

“What have you been doing to yourself?” he asked, then. “Are you sure
you are quite well?”

She looked up from the logs she was piling dexterously together,
surprised and smiling.

“Quite well? Of course I am! Never felt better! Do I look ill?”

Professor Chauvet got up and stretched his legs.

“Not ill,” he replied,--“No,--but feverish! Singularly so! Eyes too
bright--lips too red,--spiteful women would say you had put belladonna
in the one and carmine on the other! Let me feel your pulse!”

She laughed, and gave him her hand. He pressed his fingers on the cool,
firm wrist.

“No--nothing the matter there!” he said, wrinkling his fuzzy brows in a
puzzled line. “It is the pulse of youth and strong heart action. Well!
What is it?”

“What is _what_?” queried Diana, merrily, as she settled the logs to
her satisfaction, and kindled them into sparkling flame. “I know of
nothing in myself that is, or isn’t!”

He smiled a wry smile.

“There you express the sum and substance of all philosophy!” he said.
“Plato himself could go no further! All the same, there’s an _IS_ about
you that _WASN’T_! What do you make of _that_? And if you haven’t been
doing anything to yourself what has our friend Féodor Dimitrius been
doing to you?”

The question, though put suddenly, did not throw her off her guard. She
met it with clear, upraised eyes and a look of wonder.

“Why, what on earth should he do?” she asked, lightly. “He’s giving me
quite a pleasant time in Switzerland--that’s all!”

“Oh! That’s all, eh?” repeated Chauvet, baffled for the moment. “Well,
I’m glad you are having a pleasant time. Judging by your looks,
Switzerland agrees with you. But Dimitrius is a queer fellow. It’s no
use falling in love with him, you know!”

She laughed very merrily.

“My dear Professor! You talk as if I were a girl, likely to ‘moon’ and
sentimentalise over the first man that comes in my way! I’m not young
enough for that sort of thing.”

The Professor stuck his hands deep in his pockets and appeared to
meditate.

“No--perhaps not,” he said. “But experience has taught me that people
fall in love at the most unexpected ages. I have seen a child of
four,--a girl,--coquetting with a boy of seven,--and I have also seen
an old gentleman of seventy odd making himself exceedingly unpleasant
by his too rabid admiration of a married lady of forty. These things
_will_ occur!”

“But that’s not love!” laughed Diana, seating herself in a deep easy
chair opposite to him. “Come, come, Professor! You know it isn’t! It’s
nonsense!--and in the case of the old gentleman, very distressing
nonsense! Now, show me that jewel you spoke of the other day--one that
I’ve never seen--it’s called the Eye of something or somebody----”

“The Eye of Rajuna,” said Chauvet, solemnly, “a jewel with the history
of a perished world behind it. Now, Miss May, you must not look at this
remarkable stone in a spirit of trifling--it carries, compressed within
its lustre, the soul’s despair of a great Queen!”

He paused, as if thinking,--then went to an iron-bound safe which stood
in one corner of the room, and unlocked it. Fumbling for a minute or
two in its interior recesses, he presently produced a curious case
made of rough hide and fastened with a band of gold. Opening it, a
sudden flash of light sparkled from within--and Diana raised herself
in her chair to look, with a little exclamation of wonderment. The
extraordinary brilliancy of the jewel disclosed was like nothing she
had ever seen--the stone appeared to be of a deep rose colour, but in
its centre there was a moving point, as of blood-red liquid. This
floating drop glittered with an unearthly lustre, and now and again
seemed to emit rays as of living light.

“What a marvellous gem!” Diana murmured. “And how beautiful! What do
you call it?--a ruby or a coloured diamond?”

“Neither,” answered Chauvet. “It does not belong to any class of
known gems. It is the ‘Eye of Rajuna’--and in ages past it was set in
the centre of the forehead of the statue of an Assyrian queen. She
was a strange person in her day--of strong and imperious primitive
passions,--and she had rather a violent way of revenging herself for a
wrong. She had a lover--all good-looking queens have lovers--it is only
the ugly ones who are virtuous--and he grew tired of her in due course,
as lovers generally tire----”

“Do they?” put in Diana.

“Of course they do! That’s why the bond of marriage was invented--to
tie a man fast up to family duties so that he should not wander where
he listeth--though he wanders just as much--but marriage is the only
safeguard for his children. Rajuna, the Queen, however, did not approve
of her lover’s wandering--and being, in her day, a great ruler, she
could of course do as she liked with him. So she had him brought before
her in chains, and slowly hacked to pieces in her presence--a little
bit here and a little bit there, keeping him alive as long as possible
so that he might see himself cut up--and finally when the psychological
moment came, she had herself robed and crowned in full imperial style,
and, taking a sharp knife in her own fair hands, cut out his heart
_herself_ and threw it to her dogs in the palace courtyard below! This
was one of the many jewels she wore on that historic occasion!--and it
was afterwards placed in the forehead of the statue which her people
erected to the memory of their ‘good and great Queen Rajuna!’”

Diana listened with fascinated interest--her eyes fastened on the weird
jewel, and her whole expression one of complete absorption in the
horror of the story she had heard. She was silent so long that Chauvet
grew impatient.

“Well! What do you think of it all?” he demanded.

“I think she--that Assyrian queen--was quite right!” she answered,
slowly. “She gave her false lover, physically, what he had given her
morally. He had hacked _her_ to pieces,--bit by bit!--he had taken her
ideals, her hopes and confidences, and cut them all to shreds--and he
had torn _her_ heart out from its place! Yes!--she was quite right!--a
traitor deserves a traitor’s death!--I would have done the same myself!”

He stared and glowered frowningly.

“You? _You_,--a gentle Englishwoman?--you would have done the same?”

She took the jewel from its case and held it up to the light, its red
brilliance making her slender fingers rosy-tipped.

“Yes, I would!” and she smiled strangely. “I think women are all made
in much the same mould, whether English or Assyrian! There is nothing
they resent so deeply as treachery in love.”

“Yet they are treacherous themselves pretty often!” said the Professor.

“When they are they are not real women,” declared Diana. “They are
pussy-cats,--toys! A true woman loves once and loves always!”

He looked at her askance.

“I think you have been bitten, my dear lady!” he said. “Your eloquence
is the result of sad experience!”

“You are right!” she answered, quietly, still holding the “Eye of
Rajuna” and dangling it against the light. “Perfectly so! I have been
‘bitten’ as you put it--but--it is long ago.”

“Yet you cherish the idea of vengeance?”

She laughed a little.

“I don’t know! I cannot say! But when one has had life spoilt for one
all undeservedly, one _may_ wish to see the spoiler morally ‘hung,
drawn and quartered’ in a sort of good old Tudor way! Yet my story is
quite a common one,--I was engaged to a man who threw me over after I
had waited for him seven years--lots of women could tell the same tale,
I dare say!--he’s married, and has a very fat wife and five hideous
children----”

“And are you not sufficiently avenged?” exclaimed Chauvet,
melodramatically, with uplifted hands. “A fat wife and five hideous
children! Surely far worse than the Eye of Rajuna!”

Her face was clear and radiant now as she put the jewel back in its
case.

“Yes, possibly! But I sometimes fancy I should like to make sure that
it _is_ worse! I’m wickedly human enough to wish to see him suffer!”

“And yet he’s not worth such an expenditure of nerve force!” said
Chauvet, smiling kindly. “Why not spare yourself for somebody else?”

She looked at him with something of pathos in her eyes.

“Somebody else? My dear Professor, there’s not a soul in all the world
that cares for me!”

“You are wrong,--_I_ care!” he replied, with an emphasis that startled
her--“I care so much that I’ll marry you to-morrow if you’ll have me!”

She was so amazed that for the moment she could not speak. He,
perfectly calm and collected, continued with a kind of oratorical
fervour:

“I will marry you, I say! I find you charming and intelligent. Charm
in woman is common--intelligence is rare. You are a happy combination
of the two. You are not a girl--neither am I a boy. But if you take
me, you will not take a poor man. I am rich--much richer than anybody
knows. I have become interested in you--more than this, I have grown
fond of you. I would try my best--for the rest of my life--which cannot
be very long--to make you happy. I would give you a pretty house in
Paris--and all the luxuries which dainty women appreciate. And I
promise I would not bore you. And at my death I would leave you all I
possess--even the ‘Eye of Rajuna!’ Stop now, before you speak! Think
it over! I wish to give you plenty of time”--here his voice trembled a
little--“for it will be a great blow--yes, a very great blow to me if
you refuse!”

Taken by surprise as she was, Diana could not but appreciate the quiet
and chivalrous manner of the Professor, as after having made his
declaration and proposal, he stood “at attention” as it were, waiting
for her first word.

She rose from her chair and laid one hand on his arm.

“Dear Professor----” she began, hesitatingly.

“Yes--that’s good!” he said. “‘Dear Professor’ is very good! And after
that, what next?”

“After that, just this,” said Diana. “That I thank you for your kind
and generous offer with all my heart! Still more do I thank you for
saying you have grown fond of me! Nobody has said that for years! But
I will not do you such wrong as to take advantage of your goodness to
a woman you know nothing of--not, at any rate, till you know something
more! And,--to be quite honest with you--I don’t think I have it in my
heart to love any man now!”

The Professor took the hand that rested on his arm and patted it
encouragingly.

“My dear lady, I am not asking for love!” he said. “I would not do such
an absurd thing for the world! Love is the greatest delusion of the
ages,--one of the ‘springes to catch woodcocks,’ as your Shakespeare
says. I don’t want it,--I never had it, and don’t expect it. I merely
ask for permission to take care of you and make you as happy as I can
for the rest of my life. I should like to do that!--I should indeed!
The stupid and conventional world will not allow me to do it without
scandal, unless I marry you--therefore I ask you to go through this
form with me. I would not be selfish,--I would respect you in every
way----”

He broke off--and to close an embarrassing sentence gently kissed the
hand he held.

Tears stood in Diana’s eyes.

“Oh, you are good, you are good!” she murmured. “And I feel so
ungrateful because I cannot please you by at once saying ‘yes!’ But I
should feel worse than ungrateful if I did--because it would be unfair
to you!--it would, really! And yet----”

“Don’t say an absolute ‘No,’ my dear!” interrupted the Professor,
hastily. “Take time! I’ll give you as long as you like--and live in
hope!”

She smiled, though her eyes were wet. Her thoughts were all in a whirl.
How had it chanced that she, so long content to be considered “an
old maid,” should now receive an offer of marriage? Had she a right
to refuse it? Professor Chauvet was a distinguished man of science,
well known in Paris; his wife would occupy a position of dignity and
distinction. Her _salon_ would be filled with men of mark and women
of high social standing. And he “had grown fond of her” he said. That
was the best and most wonderful thing of all! That anyone should be
“fond” of her seemed to poor, lonely Diana the opening of the gates of
Paradise.

“May I--may I----” she faltered, presently.

“You may do anything!” replied Chauvet, soothingly. “You may even box
my ears, if it will relieve your feelings!”

She laughed, and looked up at him. It was a kind, rugged, clever face
she saw--plain, but shrewd, and though marked like a map with lines of
thought and care, not without character and impressiveness.

“I was rude to you the first night we met!” she said, irrelevantly.

“So was I to you,” he responded. “And you got the better of me. That’s
probably why I like you!”

She hesitated again. Then:

“May I wait----”

“Of course!” he said. “Any time! Not too long--I want to settle it
before I die!”

“Will it do when I have finished my visit to Madame Dimitrius?” she
asked. “She wishes me to stay with her for some months--she likes my
company----”

“I should think she does!” interposed Chauvet. “So should I!”

She laughed again.

“You really are very nice!” she said. “You ought to have married long
ago!”

“That’s neither here nor there,” he answered. “I’m glad I didn’t--I
might have had a fat wife and five hideous children, like your old
lover--and my life wouldn’t have been worth a _sou_!”

“Wouldn’t it?” She was quite playful by this time, and taking a knot of
violets from her own dress, pinned them in his buttonhole, much to his
delight.

“Of course not! With a fat wife and five children what would have
become of my work? I should never have done anything. As it is the
world may have to thank me for a few useful discoveries,--though I dare
say it will have to thank Féodor Dimitrius more.”

Her heart gave a quick throb.

“Do you think him very clever?” she asked.

“Clever? Clever as the devil! There never was such a man for bold
experiment! I wonder he hasn’t killed himself before now with his
exploits in chemistry. However, let us keep to the point. As I
understand it, you give me a little hope. You will not say ‘yes’ or
‘no’ till your time with Madame Dimitrius is expired--till your visit
to the Château Fragonard is ended. Is that so?”

She bent her head.

“And may I walk on air--buoyed up by hope--till then?”

She looked a little troubled.

“Dear Professor, I cannot promise anything!” she said. “You see I am
taken altogether by surprise--and--and gratitude--give me time to
think!”

“I will!” he said, kindly. “And meanwhile, we will keep our own
confidence--and the subject shall be closed till you yourself
reopen it. There! You can rely upon me. But think it all over well,
reasonably, and clearly--a husband who would care much for you, ten
thousand a year, a house in Paris and every comfort and luxury you
could wish for is not an absolutely melancholy prospect! Bless you, my
dear! And now I’ll lock up the ‘Eye of Rajuna’--it has looked upon us
and has seen nothing of falsehood or treachery to warrant the shedding
of blood!”

He moved away from her to place the jewel in his safe, and as he did
so, said:

“I have an aqua-marine here which is the colour of a Sicilian sea in
full summer--and I should like to give it to you now,--I intend it for
you--but the hawk eye of Dimitrius would notice it if you wore it,
and you would suffer the cross-examination of a Torquemada! However,
you shall have it very soon--as soon as I can invent a little fable
to give cover to its presentation. And,--let me see!----” here he
turned round, smiling.--“Well, upon my word, you have made up the fire
capitally! Quite bright and cheery!--and full of hope!”




CHAPTER XV


That evening Diana for the first time saw Dimitrius in a somewhat
irritable mood. He was sharp and peremptory of speech and impatient in
manner.

“Where have you been all the afternoon?” he demanded, at dinner, fixing
his eyes upon her with a piercing intensity.

“With Professor Chauvet,” she answered. “I wanted to see a famous
Assyrian jewel he has--it is called ‘The Eye of Rajuna.’”

Dimitrius shrugged his shoulders.

“And you are interested in that kind of thing?” he queried, with a
touch of disdain. “A stolen gem, and therefore an unlucky one--‘looted’
by a French officer from the forehead of a mutilated statue somewhere
in the East. It’s not a thing I should care to have.”

“Nor I,” agreed Diana, amicably. “But it’s worth seeing.”

“The Professor is a great authority on precious stones,” said Madame
Dimitrius. “You know, Féodor, you have always credited him with very
exceptional knowledge on the subject.”

“Of course!” he replied. “But I was not aware that Miss May had any
hankerings after jewels.”

Diana laughed. She was amused to see him more or less in a kind of
suppressed temper.

“I haven’t!” she declared, gaily. “It would be no use if I had!
Jewels are, and always have been, beyond my reach. But I like to know
positively from the Professor that they are living things, feeling heat
and cold just as we do, and that some of them shrink from diseased
persons and lose their lustre, and are brilliant and happy with healthy
ones. It is very fascinating!”

“The Professor is not!” remarked Dimitrius, ironically.

She raised her eyes, smilingly.

“No?”

“He’s a very worthy man,” put in Madame Dimitrius, gently. “And very
distinguished in his way. He’s certainly not handsome.”

“No men are, nowadays,” said Dimitrius. “The greed of money has written
itself all over human physiognomy. Beauty is at a discount,--there were
never so many downright ugly human beings as there are to-day. The Mark
of the Beast is on every forehead.”

“I don’t see it anywhere on yours!” said Diana, sweetly.

A reluctant half-smile brightened his features for a moment,--then he
gave a disdainful gesture.

“I dare say it’s there all the same!” he replied, shortly. “Or it may
be branded too deeply for you to see!” He paused--and with an abrupt
change of tone, said: “Mother, can you be ready to go to Davos this
week?”

She looked up, placidly smiling.

“Certainly! I shall be very glad to go. Diana will like it too, I’m
sure.”

“Good! Then we’ll start the day after to-morrow. I have engaged rooms.
There are one or two things I must settle before leaving--not very
important.” Here he rose from the table, dinner being concluded, and
addressed Diana. “I want you for a few moments,” he said, rather
peremptorily. “Join me, please, in the laboratory.”

He left the room. His mother and Diana looked at one another in smiling
perplexity. Diana laughed.

“He’s cross!” she declared. “_Chère Madame_, he’s cross! It is a
positive miracle! The cool scientist and calm philosopher is in a bit
of a temper!”

Madame Dimitrius gave a rather regretful and unwilling assent. Truth
to tell, the gentle old lady was more bewildered than satisfied with
certain things that were happening, and which perplexed and puzzled
her. As, for example, when Diana took her arm and affectionately
escorted her from the dining-room to the drawing-room, she could not
refrain from wondering at the singular grace and elegance of the once
plain and angular woman,--she might almost be another person, so
different was she to the one who had arrived at the Château Fragonard
in answer to her son’s advertisement. But she had promised to say
nothing, and she kept her word, though she thought none the less of
the “Flaming Sword” and the terrific problem her son had apparently
determined to solve. Meanwhile, Diana, having settled her cosily by
the fire with her knitting, ran quickly off to obey the command of
Dimitrius. She had never been asked to go near the laboratory since her
first visit there, and she hardly knew how to find the corridor leading
to it. She looked for the negro, Vasho, but though he had waited upon
them at dinner he was now nowhere to be seen. So, trusting to memory
and chance she groped her way down a long passage so dark that she had
to feel the walls on both sides to steady her steps as she went, and
she was beginning to think she had taken an entirely wrong direction,
when a dull, coppery glitter struck a shaft of light through the gloom
and she knew she was near her goal. A few more cautious steps, and
she stood opposite the great door, which glowed mysteriously red and
golden, as though secret fire were mixing living flame with its metal.
It was shut. How could she open it?--or make her presence outside it
known? Recollecting that Vasho had merely laid his hand upon it, she
presently ventured to do the same, and soon had the rather terrifying
satisfaction of seeing the huge portal swing upwards yawningly,
disclosing the interior of the vast dome and the monstrous Wheel. But
what a different scene was now presented to her eyes! When first she
had entered this mysterious “laboratory” it had been in broad daylight,
and the sun had poured its full glory through the over-arching roof
of crystal,--but now it was night and instead of sunshine there was a
cloud of fire! Or, rather, it might be described as a luminous mist
of the deep, rich hue of a damask rose. Through this vaporous veil
could be seen the revolving Wheel, which now had the appearance of a
rainbow circle. Every inch of space was full of the radiant rose haze,
and it was so dazzling and confusing to the sight that for a moment
Diana could not move. With a vague sense of terror she dimly felt that
the door had closed behind her,--but steadying her nerves she waited,
confident that Dimitrius would soon appear. And she was right. He
stepped suddenly out of the rosy mist with a casual air, as if there
were nothing unusual in the surroundings.

“Well!” he said.--“Courageous as ever?”

“Is there anything to be afraid of?” she asked. “To me it looks
wonderful!--beautiful!”

“Yes--it is the essence of all wonder and all beauty,” he answered. “It
is a form of condensed light,--the condensation which, when imprisoned
by natural forces within a mine under certain conditions, gives you
rubies, diamonds and other precious stones. And in the water beneath,
which you cannot see just now, owing to the vapour, there is sufficient
radium to make me ten times a millionaire.”

“And you will not part with any of it?”

“I do part with some of it when I find it useful to do so,” he said.
“But very seldom. I am gradually testing its real properties. The
scientists will perhaps be five hundred years at work discussing and
questioning what I may prove in a single day! But I do not wish to
enter upon these matters with you,--you are my ‘subject,’ as you know,
and I want to prepare you. The time has come when you must be ready for
anything----”

“I am!” she interrupted, quickly.

“You respond eagerly!”--and he fixed his eyes upon her with a strange,
piercing look. “But that is because you are strong and defiant of fate.
You are beginning to experience that saving vanity which deems itself
indestructible!”

She made no answer. She lifted her eyes to the highest point of the
slowly turning wheel, and its opaline flare falling through the rose
mist gave her face an unearthly lustre.

“We are going to Davos Platz,” he continued, “because it will not do
to remain here through the winter. I want the finest, clearest air,
rarefied and purified by the constant presence of ice and snow, to aid
me in my experiment,--moreover, certain changes in you will soon become
too apparent to escape notice, and people will talk. Already Baroness
Rousillon is beginning to ask questions----”

“About me?” asked Diana, amused.

“About you. Tell me, have you looked in your mirror lately?”

“Only just to do my hair,” she answered. “I avoid looking at my own
face as much as possible.”

“Why?”

She hesitated.

“Well! I don’t want to be deluded into imagining myself good-looking
when I’m not.”

He smiled.

“Resolute woman! Now listen! From this day forward I shall give you
one measure of what you call my ‘golden fire’ every fortnight. You
have experienced its first effect. What future effects it may have I
cannot tell you. But as the subject of my experiment you must submit
to the test. If you suffer bodily pain or mental confusion from its
action tell me at once, and I will do my best to spare you unnecessary
suffering. You understand?”

She had grown very pale, even to the lips,--but she answered, quietly:

“I understand! You have never asked me exactly what I did feel the
first time I took it. I may as well confess now that I thought I was
dying.”

“You will think so again and yet again,” he said, coolly. “And you
_may_ die! That’s all I have to say about it!”

She stood immovable, bathed, as it were, in the rosy radiance exhaled
by the slow and now almost solemn movement of the great Wheel. She
thought of the kindliness of Professor Chauvet,--his plain and
unadorned proposal of marriage,--his simple admission that he had
“grown fond” of her,--his offer of his name and position united
to a house in Paris and ten thousand a year!--and contrasted all
this with the deliberate, calculating callousness of the man beside
her, lost to every consideration but the success or failure of his
“experiment,”--and a passionate resentment began to burn in her soul.
But she said nothing. She had rushed upon her own fate,--there was no
way out of it now.

He moved away from her to unlock the tiny fairy-like shrine, which
concealed the slow dropping of the precious liquid mysteriously
distilled by the unknown process which apparently involved so much
vast mechanism, and, placing a small phial under the delicate tube
from which the drops fell at long, slow intervals, waited till one,
glittering like a rare jewel, was imprisoned within it. She watched
him, with more disdain than fear,--and her eyes were brilliant and
almost scornful as he raised himself from his stooping position and
faced her. The pale blue dress she wore was transformed by the rosy
light around her into a rich purple, and as she stood fixedly regarding
him there was something so proud and regal in her aspect that he
paused, vaguely astonished.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “Are you angry?”

“Who am I that I should be angry?” she retorted. “I am only your slave!”

He frowned.

“Are you going to play the capricious woman at this late hour and show
temper?” he said, impatiently. “I am in no humour for reproaches. You
promised loyalty----”

“Have I broken my promise?” she demanded.

“No--not yet! But you look as if you might break it!”

She gave a slight, yet expressive gesture of contempt.

“What a poor thing you are as a man, after all!” she exclaimed. “Here,
in the presence of the vast forces you have bent to your use,--here,
with your ‘subject,’ a mere woman, entirely at your disposal, you
doubt!--you disbelieve in my sworn word, which is as strong as all your
science, perhaps stronger! Come!--you look like a conspirator who has
extracted poison from some mysterious substance, and who is longing to
try it on a victim! Do you want me to take it now?”

He gazed at her with a sudden sense of fear. Almost her courage
overmastered his will. There was something austere and angelic in
that slight figure with the rosy waves of vapour playing about it and
turning its azure draperies to royal purple, and for the first time he
wondered whether there was not something deliberately brutal in his
treatment of her. Rallying his self-possession he answered:

“When we are outside this place you can take it, if you will----”

“Why not inside?” she asked. “Here, where the vapours of your witches’
cauldron simmer and steam--where I can feel your melting fires pricking
every vein and nerve!” and she stretched out her arms towards the Wheel
of strange opalescent light which now revolved almost at a snail’s
pace. “Make short work of me, Dr. Dimitrius!--this is the place for it!”

On a sudden impulse he sprang to her side and seized her hand.

“Diana! You think me a pitiless murderer!”

She looked straight into his eyes.

“No, I don’t. I think you simply a man without any feeling except for
yourself and your own aims. There are thousands,--aye, millions of your
sex like you,--you are not extraordinary.”

“If I succeed you will have cause to thank me----”

“Possibly!” she answered, with a slight smile. “But you know gratitude
sometimes takes curious and unexpected forms! One of the commonest is
hatred of the person who has done you a kindness! Come, give me that
fire-drop,--it is restless in its prison! We are fighting a strange
duel, you and I--you are all for self, and your own ultimate triumph--I
am selfless, having nothing to lose or to win----”

“Nothing?” he repeated. “Foolish woman!--you cannot foresee--you cannot
project yourself into the future. Suppose I gave you youth?--suppose
with youth I gave you beauty?--Would you then call me selfish?”

“Why, yes, of course!” she answered, composedly. “You would not give
such gifts to me because you had any desire to make _me_ happy--nor
would you give them if you could secure them for yourself without
endangering your life! If you succeed in your attempts they would fall
to my lot naturally as part of your ‘experiment,’ and would prove your
triumph. But as far as my personality is concerned, you would not care
what became of me, though with youth and beauty I might turn the tables
on you!” She laughed,--then said again: “Give me my dose!”

“I told you before that it would be better to take it when we go
outside the laboratory,” he answered. “Suppose you became insensible! I
could not leave you here.”

“Why not?” she demanded, recklessly. “It would not matter to you.
Please give it to me!--Whether I live or die I like doing things
quickly!”

With a certain sense of mingled compassion, admiration and reluctance,
he handed her the phial. She looked with intent interest at the shining
drop pent within, which glowed like a fine topaz, now fiery orange, now
red, now pale amber, and moved up and down as rapidly and restlessly as
quicksilver.

“How pretty it is!” she said. “If it would only condense and harden
into a gem one would like to wear it in a ring! It would outshine all
Professor Chauvet’s jewels. Well, Dr. Dimitrius, good-night! If I fall
into your dark pool don’t trouble to fish me out!--but if not, don’t
leave me here till morning!”

And, smiling, she put the phial to her lips and swallowed its contents.

Dimitrius stood, silently watching. Would she swoon, as she almost
did the last time?--or would she be convulsed? No!--she remained
erect,--unswerving:--but, as if by some automatic movement, she lifted
her arms slowly and clasped her hands above her head in an attitude of
prayer. Her eyes closed--her breathing was scarcely perceptible--and
so she remained as though frozen into stone. Moved beyond his usual
calm by wonderment at this unexpected transformation of a living woman
into a statue, he called her,--but she gave no answer. And then another
remarkable thing happened. An aureole of white light began to form
round her figure, beginning from the head and falling in brilliant rays
to the feet,--her dress seemed a woven tissue of marvellous colours
such as one finds painted for the robes of saints in antique missals,
and her features, outlined against the roseate mist that filled the
laboratory, were pure and almost transparent as alabaster. Thrilled
with excitement, he could not speak--he dared not move,--he could only
look, look, as though all his forces were concentrated in his eyes. How
many minutes passed he could not determine, but he presently saw the
light begin to pale,--one ray after another disappeared, quite slowly
and as though each one were absorbed by some mysterious means into the
motionless figure which had seemingly projected them,--then, with equal
slowness, Diana’s upraised hands relaxed and her arms dropped to her
sides--her eyes opened, brilliant and inquiring.

He went to her side. “Diana!” he said, in carefully hushed tones.
“Diana----”

“Why did you wake me?” she asked plaintively, in a voice of melting
sweetness. “Why take me away from the garden I had found? It was all
mine!--and there were many friends--they said they had not seen me for
centuries! I should have liked to stay with them a little longer!”

He listened, in something of alarm. Had she lost her senses? He knew
it was possible that the potent force of his mysterious distillation
might so attack the centres of the brain as to reverse their normal
condition. He touched her hand,--it was warm and soft as velvet.

“Still dreaming, Diana?” he said, as gently as he could. “Will you not
come with me now?”

She turned her eyes upon him. There was no sign of brain trouble in
those clear orbs of vision--they were calm mirrors of sweet expression.

“Oh, it is you!” she said in more natural tones. “I really thought I
had gone away from you altogether! It was a delightful experience!”

He was a trifle vexed. He hardly cared to hear that going away from him
altogether was “a delightful experience.” She was rapidly recovering
from her trance-like condition, and swept back her hair from her brows
with a relieved, yet puzzled gesture.

“So it’s all over!” she said. “I’m here just the same as ever! I was
sure I had gone away!”

“Where?” he asked.

“Oh, ever so far!” she answered. “I was carried off by people I
couldn’t see--but they were kind and careful, and it was quite easy
going. And then I came to a garden--oh!--such an exquisite place, full
of the loveliest flowers--somebody said it was mine! I wish it were!”

“You were dreaming,” he said, impatiently. “There’s nothing in dreams!
The chief point to me is that you have not suffered any pain. You have
nothing to complain of?”

She thought a minute, trying to recall her sensations.

“No,” she answered, truthfully, “nothing.”

“Good! Then I can proceed without fear,” he said. “Enough for
to-night--we will go.”

Her eyes were fixed on the revolving Wheel.

“It goes slowly because the sunshine has gone, I suppose?” she asked.
“And all the light it produces now is from the interior stores it has
gathered up in the day?”

He was surprised at the quickness of her perception.

“Yes--that is so,” he said.

“Then it never stops absolutely dead?”

“Never.”

She smiled.

“Wonderful Dimitrius! You have built up a little mechanical universe
of your own and you are the god of it! You must be very pleased with
yourself!”

“I am equally pleased with _you_,” he said. “You surpass all my
expectations.”

“Thanks so much!” and she curtsied to him playfully. “May I say
good-night? Will not your mother wonder where we are?”

“My mother is too sensible a woman to question my movements,” he
replied. “Come! You are sure you feel strong and well?”

“Quite sure!” she said, then paused, surprised at the intense way he
looked at her.

“Have you ever heard these lines?” he asked, suddenly:

    “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
    Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,
    Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear--
    Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!”

Diana smiled happily.

“Of course! Shakespeare’s utterance! Who else has ever written or could
write such lines?”

“I’m glad you know them!” he said, musingly. “They occurred to me just
now--when----”

He broke off abruptly.

“Come!” he repeated. “We shall not see this place again for a couple of
months--perhaps longer. And--the sooner we get away the better!”

“Why?” asked Diana, surprised.

“Why?” and a curious half-frowning expression darkened his brows. “You
must wait to know why! You will not have to wait long!”

He signed to her to keep close behind him; and together they moved
like phantom figures through the rosy mist that enveloped them, till,
at the touch of his wizard hand, the door swung upwards to give
them egress and descended again noiselessly as they passed out. The
corridor, previously dark, was now dimly lit, but it was more a matter
of groping than seeing, and Diana was glad when they reached the
pleasantly warm and well-illumined hall of the house. There he turned
and faced her.

“Now, not a word!” he said, with imperative sharpness. “Not a word of
what you have seen, or--dreamed--to my mother! Say good-night to her,
and go!”

She lifted her eyes to his in something of wonder and protest,--but
obeyed his gesture and went straight into the drawing-room where Madame
Dimitrius sat as usual, quietly knitting.

“I am to bid you good-night!” she said, smiling, as she knelt down for
a moment by the old lady’s chair. “Dear, your son is very cross!--and
I’m going to bed!”

Madame Dimitrius gazed upon her in utter amazement and something of
fear. The face uplifted to hers was so radiant and fair that for a
moment she was speechless, and the old hands that held the knitting
trembled. Remembering her son’s command in good time, she made a strong
effort to control herself, and forced a smile.

“That’s right, my dear!” she said. “Bed is the best place when you’re
tired. I don’t think Féodor means to be cross----”

“Oh, no!” agreed Diana, springing up from her kneeling attitude, and
kissing Madame’s pale cheek. “He doesn’t ‘mean’ to be anything--but
he _is_! Good-night, dearest lady! You are always kind and sweet to
me--and I’m grateful!”

With those words and an affectionate wave of her hand, she went,--and
the moment she had left the room Dimitrius entered it. His mother rose
from her chair, and made a gesture with her hands as though she were
afraid and sought to repel him. He took those nervous, wavering hands
and held them tenderly in his own.

“What’s the matter, mother mine?” he asked, playfully. “You have seen
her?”

“Féodor! Féodor! You are dealing with strange powers!--perhaps powers
of evil! Oh, my son! be careful, be careful what you do!” she implored,
almost tearfully. “You may not go too far!”

“Too far, too far!” he echoed, lightly. “There is no too far or
farthest where Nature and Science lead! The Flaming Sword!--it turns
every way to keep the Tree of Life!--but I see the blossom under the
blade!”

She looked up at his dark, strong face in mingled fondness and terror.

“You cannot re-create life, Féodor!” she said.

“Why not?” he demanded. “To-day our surgeons graft new flesh on old and
succeed in their design--why should not fresh cells of life be formed
through Nature’s own germinating processes to take the place of those
that perish? It is not an impossible theory,--I do not waste my time
on problems that can never be solved. Come, come, Mother! Put your
superstitious terrors aside--and if you have the faith in God that I
have, you will realise that there are no ‘powers of evil’ save man’s
own uncontrolled passions, which he inherits from the brute creation,
and which it is his business to master! No mere brute beast foraging
the world for prey can be an astronomer, a scientist, a thinker, or a
ruler of the powers of life,--but a MAN, with self-control, reason, and
devout faith with humility, _can_!--for is not the evolvement of his
being only ‘a little lower than the angels’?”

She sighed, half incredulous.

“But beauty----” she said. “Actual beauty----”

“Beauty is a thing of health, form and atmosphere,” he answered.
“Easy enough to attain with these forces suitably combined, and no
malign environment. Now, dearest mother, puzzle yourself no more over
my mysteries! You have seen Diana--and you can guess my reason for
wishing to get away to Davos Platz as soon as possible. People here
will talk and wonder,--at Davos no one has seen her--not as she was
when she first arrived here--and no questions are likely to be asked.
Besides,--the experiment is not half completed--it has only just begun.”

“When will it be finished?” his mother asked.

He smiled, and stooping, kissed her forehead.

“Not till the summer solstice,” he said. “When light and heat are at
their best and strongest, then I may reach my goal and win my victory!”

“And then?”

“And then?” he echoed, smiling. “Ah, who knows what then! Possibly a
happier world!--and yet--did not the Angel Uriel say to the Prophet
Esdras: ‘The Most High hath made this world for the many, but the world
to come for the few!’ _My_ secret is a part of the world to come!”




CHAPTER XVI


Two or three days later the Château Fragonard was closed,--its windows
were shuttered and its gates locked. The servants were dismissed,
all save Vasho, who, with his black face, white teeth, rolling eyes
and dumb lips, remained as sole custodian. The usual callers called
in vain,--and even the Baroness Rousillon, a notable and persistent
inquirer into all matters of small social interest, could learn nothing
beyond the fact (written neatly on a card which Vasho handed to all
visitors) that “Dr. and Madame Dimitrius had left home for several
weeks.” Of Diana May no information was given. Among those who were
the most surprised and deeply chagrined at this turn of events was
the Marchese Farnese, who had himself been compelled to be away for
some time on business in Paris, but who had returned as soon as he
could to Geneva in the hope of improving his acquaintance with Diana
sufficiently to procure some sort of reliable information as to the
problems and projects of Dimitrius. His disappointment was keen and
bitter, for not only did he find her gone, but he could obtain no clue
as to her whereabouts. And even Professor Chauvet had been left very
much in the dark, for Diana had only written him the briefest note,
running thus:

 “Dear Kind Friend!

 “I’m going away for a little while with Madame Dimitrius, who needs
 change of air and scene, but I will let you know directly I come back.
 I shall think of you very often while absent!

      “Affectionately yours,
                        “Diana.”

Chauvet put by these brief lines very preciously in the safe where
he kept his jewels,--“Affectionately yours” was a great consolation,
he thought!--they almost touched the verge of tenderness!--there was
surely hope for him! And he amused himself in his solitary hours with
the drawing of an exquisite design for a small coronal to be worn in
Diana’s hair, wherein he purposed having some of his rarest jewels set
in a fashion of his own.

Meanwhile the frozen stillness of an exceptionally dreary and bitter
winter enveloped the Château Fragonard and its beautiful gardens, and
no one was ever seen to go to it, or come from it, though there were
certain residents on the opposite side of the lake who could perceive
its roof and chimneys through the leafless trees and who declared that
its great glass dome was always more or less illumined as though a
light were constantly kept burning within. Rumour was busy at first
with all sorts of suggestions and contradictions, but as there appeared
to be no foundation for any one of them, the talk gradually wore itself
out, most people being always too much interested in themselves to keep
up any interest in others for long.

But, had Rumour a million eyes, as it is said to have a million
tongues, it might well have had occasion to use them all during the
full swing of that particular “season” at Davos Platz, where, in the
“winter sports” and gaieties of the time, Diana was an admired “belle”
and universal favourite. She, who only three or four months previously
had been distinctly “on the shelf” or “in the way,” was now flattered
and sought after by a whole train of male admirers, who apparently
could never have enough of her society. She conversed brilliantly,
danced exquisitely, and skated perfectly,--so perfectly indeed that one
fatuous elderly gentleman nicknamed her “the Ice Queen,” and another,
younger but not less enterprising, addressed her as “_Boule de
Neige_,” conceiving the title prettier in French than in rough English
as “Snowball.” She accepted the attentions lavished upon her with
amused indifference, which made her still more attractive to men whose
“sporting” tendencies are invariably sharpened by obstacles in the way
of securing their game, and, much to her own interest, found herself
the centre of all sorts of rivalries and jealousies.

“If they only knew my age!” she thought one day. “If they only knew!”

But they did not know. And it would have been quite impossible for them
to guess. Thus much Diana herself was now forced to concede. Every day
her mirror showed her a fair, unworn face, with the softly rounded
outline of youth, and the clear eyes which betoken the unconscious joy
of perfect health and vitality, and the change in her was so marked
and manifest that she no longer hesitated to speak to Madame Dimitrius
about it when they were alone together. At first the old lady was
very nervous of the subject, and fearful lest she should in some way
displease her masterful son,--but Diana reassured her, promising that
he should never know the nature or extent of their confidences. It
was a great relief to them both when they entered into closer mutual
relations and decided to talk to each other freely--especially to
Madame Dimitrius, who was anxious to be made certain that Diana was
not in any physical suffering or mental distress through the exercise
of Féodor’s extraordinary and, as she imagined, almost supernatural
powers. She was soon satisfied on that score, for Diana could assure
her, with truth, that she had never felt better or brighter.

“It’s like a new life,” she said, one day, as she sat at the window
of their private sitting-room in the hotel, which commanded a fine
view of the snowy mountain summits. “I feel as if I had somehow been
born again! All my past years seem rolled away like so much rubbish!
I’ve often thought of those words: ‘Except ye be born again ye shall
not enter into the Kingdom of God.’ They used to be a mystery to me,
but they’re not so mysterious now! And it is just like ‘entering the
Kingdom of God’ to look out on this glorious beauty of the mountains,
the snow and the pine trees, and to feel alive to it all, grateful for
it all, loving it all,--as I do!”

Madame Dimitrius regarded her earnestly.

“You do not think, then,” she suggested, “that my son is guilty of
any offence against the Almighty by his dealings with these strange,
unknown forces----”

“Dear Madame!” interrupted Diana, quickly--“do not for a moment
entertain such an idea! It belongs to those foolish times when the
Church was afraid to know the truth and tortured people for telling it!
What offence _can_ there be in exerting to the utmost, the intelligent
faculties God has given us, and in studying to find out the wonderful
advantages and benefits which may be possessed by those who cultivate
reason and knowledge! I think it is a far greater offence against God,
to wilfully remain in ignorance of His goodness to us all!”

“Perhaps!”--and the old lady sighed--then smiled. “I’m afraid I am
one of those who ‘darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge!’ But,
after all, the great thing for me is that I see you well and happy--and
greatest marvel of all--growing younger every day! You see that for
yourself, don’t you?--and you feel it?”

“Yes.” And, as she spoke, a strange, far-away look came into Diana’s
eyes. “But--there is one thing I wish I could explain, even to myself!
I feel well, happy, keenly alive to all I see and hear,--and yet--there
is an odd sensation back of it all!--a feeling that I have _no_
feeling!”

“My dear Diana!” And Madame Dimitrius’s pale blue eyes opened a little
wider. “What a strange thing to say! You are full of feeling!”

Diana shook her head decisively.

“No, I’m not! It’s all put on! It is, really! That is, so far as human
beings and human events are concerned. I feel nothing whatever about
them! The only ‘feeling’ I have is a sort of suppressed ecstasy of
delight in beauty--the beauty of the skies, the effects of sunlight on
the hills and plains, the loveliness of a flower or a bit of exquisite
natural scenery--but I have somehow lost the sense of all association
with humanity!”

“But--my dear girl!----” began Madame, in perplexity.

Diana laughed.

“Ah, now you call me a ‘girl,’ too!” she exclaimed, merrily. “Just as
they all do here in this hotel! I’m not a girl at all--I’m a woman of
‘mature years,’ but nobody would believe it! Even Dr. Féodor himself
is getting puzzled--for he addressed me as ‘dear child’ this very
morning!” She laughed again--her pretty laugh,--which was like a
musical cadence.

“Yes, dear Madame!--it’s a fact!--with my renewal of youth I’m
developing youth’s happy-go-lucky indifference to emotions!
People,--the creatures that walk about on two legs and eat
and talk--have absolutely no interest for me!--unless they do
something absurd which they imagine to be clever--and that makes me
laugh,--sometimes,--not always! Even your wonderful son, with his
amazing powers and his magnetic eyes which used to send a thrill right
down my spine, fails to move me now to any concern as to my ultimate
fate in his hands. I know that he is, so far, succeeding in his
experiment; but what the final result may be I don’t know--and--I don’t
care!”

“You don’t care!” echoed Madame, in bewilderment. “Really and truly?
You don’t care?”

“No, not a bit! That’s just the worst of it! See here, you dear, kind
woman!--here I am; a bought ‘subject’ for Dr. Féodor to try his skill
upon. He told me plainly enough on one occasion that it wouldn’t matter
and couldn’t be helped if I died under his treatment--and I quite
agreed with him. Up to the present I’m not dead and don’t feel like
dying--but I’m _hardening_! Yes! that’s it! Steadily, slowly hardening!
Not in my muscles--not in my arteries--no!--but in my sentiments and
emotions which are becoming positively _nil_!” Her merry laugh rang
out again, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “But what a good
thing it is, after all! Men are so fond of telling one that they hate
‘emotions’--so it’s just as well to be without them! Now, for instance,
I’m having a splendid time here--I love all the exercise in the open
air, the skating, tobogganing, and dancing in the evening,--it’s all
great fun, but I don’t ‘feel’ that it _is_ as splendid as it _seems_!
Men flatter me every day,--they say ‘How well you skate!’ or ‘How well
you dance!’ ‘How well you play!’ or even ‘How charming you look!’ and
if such things had been said to me in England six months ago I should
have been so happy and at ease that I should never have been afraid and
awkward as I generally was in society--but now! Why now I simply don’t
care!--I only think what fools men are!”

“But you must remember,” said Madame Dimitrius gently--“you were very
different in appearance six months ago to what you are now----”

“Exactly! That’s just it!” And Diana gave an expressive gesture of
utter disdain. “That’s what I hate and despise! One is judged by looks
only. I’m just the same woman as ever--six months ago I danced as well,
skated as well, and played the piano as well as I do now--but no one
ever gave me the smallest encouragement! Now everything I do is made
the subject of exaggerated compliment, by the men of course!--not by
the women; _they_ always hate a successful rival of their own sex! Ah,
how petty and contemptible it all is! You see I’m growing young looks
with old experience!--rather a dangerous combination of forces, _I_
think!--however, if our souls become angels when we die, _they_ will
have a vast experience to look back upon, dating from the beginning of
creation!”

“And, looking back so far, they will understand all,” said Madame
Dimitrius. “As one of our great writers has said: ‘To know all is to
pardon all.’”

Diana shrugged her shoulders.

“Perhaps!” she carelessly conceded. “But that’s just where I should
fail as an angel! I cannot ‘pardon all.’ I hold a standing grudge
against injustice, callousness, cruelty and cowardice. I forgive
none of these things. I loathe a hypocrite--especially a pious one!
I should take pleasure in revenge of some sort on any such loathsome
creature. I would rather save a fly from drowning in the milk-jug than
a treacherous human being from the gallows!”

“Dear me!” and Madame smiled--“you speak very strongly, Diana!
Especially when you assure me that you cannot ‘feel!’”

“Oh, I can feel hatred!” said Diana. “_That_ sort of feeling seems
to have a good grip of me! But love, interest, sympathy for other
folks--no!--ten thousand times no! One might love a man with all
the ardour and passion of a lifetime, and yet he may be capable of
boasting of your ‘interest’ in him at his club and damaging your
reputation--(you know some clubs are like old washerwomen’s corners
where they meet to talk scandal)--and you may waste half your time in
interest and sympathy for other folks and they’ll only ask dubiously,
‘What is it all for?’ and ‘round’ on you at the first opportunity,
never crediting you with either honesty or unselfishness in your words
or actions. No, no! It’s best to ‘play’ the world’s puppets--never to
become one of them!”

“You are bitter, my dear!” commented Madame. “I think it is because you
have missed a man’s true love.”

Diana laughed and sprang up from her chair.

“Maybe!” she replied. “But--‘a man’s true love’--as I see it, seems
hardly worth the missing! You are a dear, sentimental darling!--you
have lived in the ‘early Victorian’ manner, finding an agreeable lover
who gave you his heart, after the fashion of an antique Valentine,
and whom you married in the proper and conventional style, and in
due course gave him a baby. That’s it! And oh, SUCH a baby! Féodor
Dimitrius!--doctor of sciences and master of innumerable secrets of
nature--yet, after all, only your ‘baby!’ It is a miracle! But I wonder
if it was worth while! Don’t mind my nonsense, dearest lady!--just
think of me as hardening and shining!--like bits of the glacier we
saw the other day which move only about an inch in a thousand years!
There’s a ‘sports’ ball on the ice to-night--a full moon too!--and your
wonderful son has agreed to skate with me--I wish you would come and
look at us!”

“I’m too old,” said Madame Dimitrius, with a slight sigh. “I wish
Féodor would make _me_ young as he is making _you_!”

“He’s afraid!” and Diana stood, looking at her for a moment. “He’s
afraid of killing you! But he’s not afraid of killing _me_!”

With that she went,--and Madame, laying down her work, folded her hands
and prayed silently that no evil might come to her beloved son through
the strange mysteries which he was seeking to solve, and which to her
simple and uninstructed mind appeared connected with the powers of
darkness rather than the powers of light.

That evening Diana scored a triumph as belle of the “sports” ball.
Attired in a becoming skating costume of black velvet trimmed with
white fur, with a charming little “toque” hat to match, set jauntily on
her bright hair, and a bunch of edelweiss at her throat, she figured as
an extremely pretty “girl,” and her admirers were many. When Dimitrius
came to claim his promised “glissade” by her side, she welcomed him
smilingly, yet with an indifference which piqued him.

“Are you tired?” he asked. “Would you rather not skate any more just
now?”

She gave him an amused look.

“I am never tired,” she said. “I could skate for ever, if it were not,
like all things, certain to become monotonous. And I’m sure it’s very
good of you to skate with a woman ‘of mature years’ when there are so
many nice girls about.”

“You are the prettiest ‘girl’ here,” he answered, with a smile.
“Everyone says so!”

“And what do you say to everyone?” she demanded.

“I agree. Naturally!”

He took her hand, and together they started skimming easily over the
ice, now shining like polished crystal in the radiance of the moon and
the light thrown from torches set round the expanse of the skating
ground by the hotel purveyors of pleasure for their visitors. Diana’s
lightness and grace of movement had from the first been the subject of
admiring comment in the little world of humanity, gathered for the
season on those Swiss mountain heights, but this evening she seemed
to surpass herself, and, with Dimitrius, executed wonderful steps and
“figures” at flying speed with the ease of a bird on the wing. Men
looked on in glum annoyance that Dimitrius should have so much of her
company, and women eyed her with scarcely concealed jealousy. But at
the end of an hour she said she had “had enough of it,” and pulling
off her skates she walked with a kind of sedate submissiveness beside
Dimitrius away from the gay scene on the ice back to the hotel. Their
way led through an avenue of pine trees, which, stiffly uplifting their
spear-like points to the frosty skies and bright moon, looked like
fantastic giant sentinels on guard for the night. Stopping abruptly in
the midst of the eerie winter stillness she said suddenly:

“Dr. Féodor, do you know I’ve had three proposals of marriage since
I’ve been here?”

He smiled indulgently.

“Ay, indeed! I’m not surprised! And you have refused them all?”

“Of course! What’s the good of them?”

His dark eyes glittered questioningly upon her through their veiling,
sleepy lids.

“The good of them? Well, really, that is for you to decide! If you want
a husband----”

“I don’t!” she said, emphatically, with a decisive little stamp of her
foot on the frozen ground. “I should hate him!”

“Unhappy wretch! Why?”

“Oh, because!”--she hesitated, then laughed--“because he would be
always about! He’d have the right to go with me everywhere--such a
bore!”

“Love----” began Dimitrius, sententiously.

“Love!” She flashed a look of utter scorn upon him. “You don’t believe
in it--neither do I! What have we to do with love?”

“Nothing!” he agreed, quietly. “But--you are really rewarding my
studies, Diana! You are growing very pretty!”

She turned from him with a gesture of offended impatience and walked
on. He caught up to her.

“You don’t like my telling you that?” he said.

“No. Because the ‘prettiness’ is your forced product. It’s not _my_
natural output.”

He seized her hand somewhat roughly and held it as in a vice.

“You talk foolishly!” he said, in a low, stern voice. “My ‘forced
product’ as you call it, is not mine, except in so far that I have
found and made use of the forces of regenerative life which are in
God’s life and air and which enter into the work of all creation. Your
‘prettiness’ is God’s work!--lift up your eyes to the Almighty Power
which ‘maketh all things new!’”

Awed and startled by the impassioned tone of his voice and his
impressive manner, she stood inert, her hand remaining passively in his
firm grasp.

“Men propose to you,” he went on, “because they find you attractive,
and because your face and figure excite their passions--there is no
real ‘love’ in the case, any more than there is in most proposals. The
magnetism of sex is the thing that ‘pulls’--but you--you, my ‘subject,’
have _no_ sex! That’s what nobody outside ourselves is likely to
understand. The ‘love’ which is purely physical,--the mating which
has for its object the breeding of children, is not for you any more
than it would be for an angel--you are removed from its material and
sensual contact. But the love which should touch your soul to immortal
issues, and which by its very character is expressed through youth
and beauty,--that _may_ come to you!--that may be yours in due time!
Meanwhile, beware how you talk of my ‘forced product’--for behind all
the powers I am permitted to use is the Greatest Power of all, to Whom
I am but the poorest of servants!”

A deep sigh broke from him and he released her hand as suddenly as he
had grasped it.

“You have felt no ill effects from the treatment?” he then asked, in a
matter-of-fact tone.

“No,” she answered. “None at all--except----”

“Except--what?”

“Oh, well!--no very great matter! Only that I seem to have lost
something out of myself--I have no interest in persons or events--no
sympathy with human kind. It’s curious, isn’t it? I feel that I belong
more to the atmosphere than to the earth, and that I love trees, grass,
flowers, birds and what is called the world of Nature more than the
world of men. Of course I always loved Nature,--but what was once a
preference has now become a passion--and perhaps, when you’ve done with
me, if I live, I shall go and be a sort of hermit in the woods, away
altogether from ‘people.’ I don’t like flesh and blood!--there’s a kind
of coarseness in it!” she concluded carelessly as she resumed her walk
towards the hotel.

He was puzzled and perplexed. He watched her as she moved, and noted,
as he had done several times that evening, the exquisite lightness of
her step.

“Well, at any rate, you are not, physically speaking, any the worse for
receiving my treatment once a fortnight?” he asked.

“Oh, no! I am very well indeed!” she replied at once. “I can truthfully
assure you I never felt better. Your strange ‘fire-drop’ never gives
me any uncanny ‘sensations’ now--I don’t mind it at all. It seems to
fill me with a sort of brightness and buoyancy. But I have no actual
‘feeling’ about it--neither pleasure nor pain. That’s rather odd, isn’t
it?”

They were at the entrance door of the hotel, and stood on the steps
before going in. The moonlight fell slantwise on Diana’s face and
showed it wonderfully fair and calm, like that of a sculptured angel in
some niche of a cathedral.

“Yes--perhaps it is odd,” he answered. “As I have already told you,
I am not cognisant of the possible action of the commingled elements
I have distilled,--I can only test them and watch their effect upon
_you_, in order to gain the necessary knowledge. But that you have no
‘feeling’ seems to me an exaggerated statement,--for instance, you must
have ‘felt’ a good deal of pleasure in your skating to-night?”

“Not the least in the world!” and the smile she gave him was as chill
as a moonbeam on snow. “I skated on the ice with the same volition
as a bubble floats along the air,--as unconscious as the bubble--and
as indifferent! The bubble does not care when it breaks--nor do I!
Good-night!”

She pushed open the swing door of the hotel and passed in.

He remained outside in the moonlight, vexed with himself and her,
though he could not have told why. He lit a cigar and strolled slowly
backwards and forwards in the front of the hotel, trying to soothe his
inward irritation by smoking, but the effect was rather futile.

“She is wonderfully pretty and attractive now,” he mused. “If all
succeeds she will be beautiful. And what then? I wonder! With every
process of age stopped and reversed, and with all the stimulating
forces of creative regeneration working in every cell of her body it
is impossible to tell how she may develop--and yet--her mentality
may remain the same! This is easily accounted for, because all one’s
experiences of life from childhood make permanent impressions on the
brain and stay there. Like the negatives stored in a photographer’s
dark room one cannot alter them. And the puzzle to me is, how will her
mentality ‘carry’ with her new personality? Will she know how to hold
the balance between them? I can see already that men are quite likely
to lose their heads about her--but what does that matter! It is not the
first time they have maddened themselves for women who are set beyond
the pale of mere sex.”

He looked up at the still sky,--the frostily sparkling stars,--the
snowy peaks of the mountains and the bright moon.

“Thank God I have never loved any woman save my mother!” he said. “For
so I have been spared both idleness and worry! To lose one’s time and
peace because a woman smiles or frowns is to prove one’s self a fool or
a madman!”

And going into the hotel, he finished his cigar in the lounge where
other men were smoking, all unaware that several of them detested
the sight of his handsome face and figure for no other reason than
that he seemed ostensibly to be the guardian, as his mother was the
chaperon, of the prettiest “girl” of that season at Davos, Diana May,
and therefore nothing was more likely than that she should fall in love
with him and he with her. It is always in this sort of fashion that
the goose-gabble of “society” arranges persons and events to its own
satisfaction, never realising that being only geese they cannot see
beyond the circle of their own restricted farmyard.




CHAPTER XVII


It was quite the end of the season at Davos before Dimitrius quitted
it and took his mother and Diana on to the Riviera. Here, in the warm
sunshine of the early Southern spring he began to study with keener and
closer interest the progress of his “subject,” whose manner towards him
and general bearing became more and more perplexing as time went on.
She was perfectly docile and amiable,--cheerful and full of thoughtful
care and attention for Madame Dimitrius,--and every fortnight took his
mysterious “potion” in his presence without hesitation or question, so
that he had nothing to complain of--but there was a new individuality
about her which held her aloof in a way that he was at a loss to
account for. Wherever she went she was admired,--men stared, talked and
sought introductions, and she received all the social attention of an
acknowledged “belle” without seeking or desiring it.

One evening at a hotel in Cannes she was somewhat perturbed by seeing
a portly elderly man whom she recognised as a club friend of her
father’s, and one who had been a frequent week-end visitor at Rose Lea.
She hoped he would not hear her name, but she was too much the observed
of all observers to escape notice, and it was with some trepidation
that she saw him coming towards her with the rolling gait suggestive of
life-long whisky-sodas--a “man-about-town” manner she knew and detested.

“Pardon me!” he said, with an openly admiring glance, “but I have just
been wondering whether you are any relation of some friends of mine in
England named May. Curiously enough, they had a daughter called Diana.”

“Really!” And Diana smiled--a little cold, haughty smile which was
becoming habitual with her. “I’m afraid I cannot claim the honour of
their acquaintance!”

She spoke in a purposely repellent manner, whereat the bold intruder
was rendered awkward and abashed.

“I know I should not address you without an introduction,” he said
stammeringly. “I hope you will excuse me! But my old friend Polly----”

“Your old friend--what?” drawled Diana, carelessly, unfurling a fan and
waving it idly to and fro.

“Polly--we call him Polly for fun,” he explained. “His full name
is James Polydore May. And his daughter, Diana, was drowned last
summer--drowned while bathing.”

“Dear me, how very sad!” and Diana concealed a slight yawn behind her
fan. “Poor girl!”

“Oh, she wasn’t a girl!” sniggered her informant. “She was quite an
old maid--over forty by a good way. But it was rather an unfortunate
affair.”

“Why?” asked Diana. “I don’t see it at all! Women over forty who have
failed to get married shouldn’t live! Don’t you agree?”

He sniggered again.

“Well,--perhaps I do!--perhaps I do! But we mustn’t be severe--we
mustn’t be severe! We shall get old ourselves some day!”

“We shall indeed!” Diana responded, ironically. “Even _you_ must have
passed your twentieth birthday!”

He got up a spasmodic laugh at this, but looked very foolish all the
same.

“Did you--in these psychic days--think I might be the drowned old maid
reincarnated?” she continued, lazily, still playing with her fan.

This time his laugh was unforced and genuine.

“_You!_ My dear young lady! The Miss May I knew might be your mother!
No,--it was only the curious coincidence of names that made me wonder
if you were any relative.”

“There are many people in the world of the same name,” remarked Diana.

“Quite so! You will excuse me, I’m sure, and accept my apologies!”

She bent her head carelessly and he moved away.

A few minutes later Dimitrius approached her.

“Come out on the terrace,” he said. “It’s quite warm and there’s a fine
moon. Come and tell me all about it!”

She looked at him in surprise.

“All about it? What do you mean?”

“All about the little podgy man who was talking to you! You’ve met him
before, haven’t you? Yes? Come along!--let’s hear the little tale of
woe!”

His manner was so gentle and playful that she hardly understood it--it
was something quite new. She obeyed his smiling gesture and throwing a
light scarf about her shoulders went out with him on the terrace which
dominated the smooth sloping lawn in front of the hotel, where palms
lifted their fringed heads to the almost violet sky and the scent of
mimosa filled every channel of the moonlit air.

“I heard all he said to you,” went on Dimitrius. “I was sitting behind
you, hidden by a big orange tree in a tub,--not purposely hidden, I
assure you! And so you are drowned!”

He laughed,--then, as he saw she was about to speak, held up his hand.

“Hush! I can guess it all! Not wanted at home, except as a household
drudge--unloved and alone in the world, you made an exit--not a _real_
exit--just a stage one!--and came to me! Excellently managed!--for
now, being drowned and dead, as the _old_ Diana, you can live in your
own way as the _young_ one! And you are quite safe! Your own father
wouldn’t know you!”

She was silent, looking gravely out to sea and the scarcely visible
line of the Esterel Mountains.

“You mustn’t resent my quickness in guessing!” he continued. “I can
always put two and two together and make four! Our podgy friend has
been unconsciously a very good test of the change in you.”

She turned her head and looked fixedly at him.

“Yes. Of the _outward_ change. But of the inward, even _you_ know
nothing!”

“Do I not? And will you not tell me?”

She smiled strangely.

“It will be difficult. But as your ‘subject’ I suppose I am bound to
tell----”

He made a slight, deprecatory gesture.

“Not unless you wish.”

“I have no wishes,” she replied. “The matter is, like everything else,
quite indifferent to me. You have guessed rightly as to the causes of
my coming to you--my father and mother were much disappointed at my
losing all my ‘chances’ as the world puts it, and failing to establish
myself in a respectable married position--I was a drag on their wheel,
though they are both quite old people,--so I relieved them of my
presence in the only way I could think of to make them sure they were
rid of me for ever. Then--on the faith of your advertisement I came to
you. You know all the rest--and you also know that the ‘experiment’
for which you wanted ‘a woman of mature years’ is--so far--successful.
But----”

“There are no buts,” interrupted Dimitrius. “It is more than fulfilling
my hopes and dreams!--and I foresee an ultimate triumph!--a discovery
which shall revivify and regenerate the human race! You too--surely you
must enjoy the sense of youth--the delight of seeing your own face in
the mirror----?”

Diana shrugged her shoulders.

“It leaves me cold!” she said. “It’s a pretty face--quite charming, in
fact!--but it seems to me to be the face of somebody else! I don’t feel
in myself that I possess it! And the ‘sense of youth’ you speak of has
the same impression--it is somebody else’s sense of youth!” Her eyes
glittered in the moonlight, and her voice, low and intensely musical,
had a curious appealing note in it. “Féodor Dimitrius, _it is not
human_!” He was vaguely startled by her look and manner.

“Not human?----” he repeated, wonderingly.

“No--not human! This beauty, this youth which you have recreated in
me, are not human! They are a portion of the air and the sunlight--of
the natural elements--they make my body buoyant, my spirit restless.
I long for some means to lift myself altogether from the gross earth,
away from heavy and cloddish humanity, for which I have not a remnant
of sympathy! I am not of it!--I am changed,--and it is you that have
changed me. Understand me well, if you can!--You have filled me
with a strange force which in its process of action is beyond your
knowledge,--and by its means I have risen so far above you that I
hardly know you!”

She uttered these strange words calmly and deliberately in an even tone
of perfect sweetness.

A sudden and uncontrollable impulse of anger seized him.

“That is not true!” he said, almost fiercely. “You know me for your
master!”

She bent her head, showing no offence.

“Possibly! For the present.” And again she looked lingeringly, gravely
out towards the sea. “Shall we go in now?”

“One moment!” he said, his voice vibrating with suppressed passion.
“What you feel, or imagine you feel, is no actual business of mine. I
have set myself to force a secret of Nature from the darkness in which
it has been concealed for ages--a secret only dimly guessed at by the
sect of the Rosicrucians--and I know myself to be on the brink of a
vast scientific discovery. If you fail me now, all is lost----”

“I shall not fail you,” she interposed quietly.

“You may--you may!” and he gave a gesture half of wrath, half of
appeal. “Who knows what you will do when the final ordeal comes! With
these strange ideas of yours--born of feminine hysteria, I suppose--who
can foretell the folly of your actions?--or the obedience? And yet you
promised--you promised----”

She turned to him with a smile.

“I promised--and I shall fulfil!” she said. “What a shaken spirit is
yours!--You cannot trust--you cannot believe! I have told you, and I
repeat it--that I place my life in your hands to do what you will with
it--to end it even, if so you decide. But if it continues to be a life
that _lives_, on its present line of change, it will be a life above
you and beyond you! That is what I wish you to understand.”

She drew her scarf about her and moved along the terrace to re-enter
the lounge of the hotel. The outline of her figure was the embodiment
of grace, and the ease of her step suggested an assured dignity.

He followed her,--perplexed, and in a manner ashamed at having shown
anger. Gently she bade him “good-night” and went at once to her room.
Madame Dimitrius had retired quite an hour previously.

Once alone, she sat down to consider herself and the position in which
she was placed. Before her was her mirror, and she saw reflected
therein a young face, and the lustre of young eyes darkly blue and
brilliant, which gave light to the features as the sun gives light
to the petals of a flower. She saw a dazzlingly clear skin as fair
as the cup of a lily, and she studied each point of perfection with
the critical care of an analyst or dissector. Every line of age or
worry had vanished,--and the bright hair of which she had always been
pardonably proud, had gained a deeper sheen, a richer hue, while it had
grown much more luxuriant and beautiful.

“And now,” she mused, “now,--how is it that when I can attract love,
I no longer want it? That I do not care if I never saw a human being
again? That human beings bore and disgust me? That something else fills
me,--desires to which I can give no name?”

She rose from her chair and went to the window. It opened out to a
small private balcony facing the Mediterranean, and she stood there
as in a dream, looking at the deep splendour of the southern sky. One
great star, bright as the moon itself, shone just opposite to her, like
a splendid jewel set on dark velvet. She drew a deep breath.

“To this I belong!” she said, softly--“To this--and only this!”

She made an exquisite picture, had she known it,--and had any one of
her numerous admirers been there to see her, he might have become as
ecstatic as Shakespeare’s Romeo. But for herself she had no thought, so
far as her appearance was concerned,--something weird and mystical had
entered into her being, and it was this new self of hers that occupied
all her thoughts and swayed all her emotions.

Just before they left Cannes to return to Geneva, Dimitrius asked her
to an interview with himself and his mother alone. They had serious
matters to discuss, he said, and important details to decide upon.
She found Madame Dimitrius pale and nervous, with trembling hands
and tearful eyes,--while Dimitrius himself had a hard, inflexible
bearing as of one who had a disagreeable duty to perform, but who,
nevertheless, was determined to see it through.

“Now, Miss May,” he said, “we have come to a point of action in which
it is necessary to explain a few things to you, so that there shall be
no misunderstanding or confusion. My mother is now, to a very great
extent, in my confidence, as her assistance and co-operation will be
necessary. It is nearing the end of April, and we propose to return to
the Château Fragonard immediately. We shall open the house and admit
our neighbours and acquaintances to visit us as usual, but--for reasons
which must be quite apparent to you--_you_ are not to be seen. It is to
be supposed that you have returned to England. You follow me?”

He spoke with a businesslike formality, and Diana, smiling, nodded
a cheerful acquiescence,--then seeing that Madame Dimitrius looked
troubled, went and sat down by her, taking her hand and holding it
affectionately in her own. “You will keep to your suite of apartments,”
Dimitrius continued, “and Vasho will be your sole attendant,--with the
exception of my mother and myself!” Here a sudden smile lightened his
rather stern expression. “I shall give myself the pleasure of taking
you out every day in the fresh air,--fortunately, from our gardens one
can see without being seen.”

Diana, still caressing Madame Dimitrius’s fragile old hand, sat
placidly silent.

“You are quite agreeable to this arrangement?” went on Dimitrius--“You
have nothing to suggest on your own behalf?”

“Nothing whatever!” she answered. “Only--how long is it to last?”

He raised his eyes and fixed them upon her with a strange expression.

“On the twenty-first of June,” he said, “I make my final test upon
you--the conclusion of my ‘experiment.’ After the twenty-fourth you
will be free. Free to go where you please--to do as you like. Like
Shakespeare’s ‘Prospero,’ I will give my ‘fine sprite’ her liberty!”

“Thank you!” and she laughed a little, bending her head towards Madame
Dimitrius. “Do you hear that, dear lady? Think of it! What good times
there are in store for me! If I can only ‘feel’ that they _are_
good!--or even bad!--it would be quite a sensation!” And she flashed
a bright look at Dimitrius as he stood watching her almost morosely.
“Well!” she said, addressing him, “after the twenty-fourth of June, if
I live, and if you permit it, I want to go back to England. Can that be
arranged?”

“Assuredly! I will find you a chaperone----”

“A chaperone!” Her eyes opened widely in surprise and amusement. “Oh,
no! I’m quite old enough to travel alone!”

“That will not be apparent to the world”--And he smiled again in his
dark, reluctant way--“But--we shall see. In any case, if you wish to go
to England, you shall be properly escorted.”

“And if you go, will you not come back to us?” asked Madame Dimitrius,
rather wistfully. “I do not want to part with you altogether!”

“You shall not, dear Madame! I will come back.” And she gently kissed
the hand she held. “Even Professor Chauvet may want to see me again!”

Dimitrius gave her a sharp glance.

“That old man is fond of you?” he said, tentatively.

“Of course he is!” And she laughed again. “Who would _not_ be fond
of me! Excellent Dr. Dimitrius! Few men are so impervious to woman as
yourself!”

“You think me impervious?”

“I think a rock by the sea or block of stone more impressionable!” she
replied, merrily. “But that is as it should be. Men of science _must_
be men without feeling,--they could not do their work if they ‘felt’
things.”

“I disagree,” said Dimitrius, quickly--“it is just because men of
science ‘feel’ the brevity and misery of human life so keenly that they
study to alleviate some of its pangs, and spare some of its waste. They
seek to prove the Why and the Wherefore of the apparent uselessness of
existence----”

“Nothing is useless, surely!” put in Diana--“Not even a grain of dust!”

“Where is the dust of Carthage?” he retorted--“Of Babylon? Of Nineveh?
With what elements has it commingled to make more men as wise, as
foolish, as sane, or as mad as the generations passed away? The
splendour, the riches, the conquests, the glories of these cities were
as great or greater than any that modern civilisation can boast of--and
yet--what remains? Dust? And is the dust necessary and valuable? Who
can tell! Who knows!”

“And with all the mystery and uncertainty, is it not better to trust
in God?” said Madame Dimitrius, gently. “Perhaps the little child who
says ‘Our Father’ is nearer to Divine Truth than all the science of the
world.”

“Sweetly thought and sweetly said, my Mother!” answered Dimitrius.
“But, believe me, I can say ‘Our Father’ with a more perfect and
exalted faith now than I did when I was a child at your knee. And
why? Because I know surely that there is ‘Our Father’ which is in
Heaven!--and because He permits us to use reason, judgment and a sane
comprehension of Nature, even so I seek to learn what I am confident
He wishes us to know!”

“At all risks?” his mother hinted, in a low tone.

“At all risks!” he answered. “A political government risks millions of
human lives to settle a temporary national dispute--I risk _one_ life
to make millions happier! And”--here he looked steadily at Diana with
a certain grave kindness in his eyes--“she is brave enough to take the
risk!”

Diana met his look with equal steadiness.

“I do not even think about it!” she said--“It does not seem worth
while!”




CHAPTER XVIII


The strange spirit of complete indifference, and the attitude of
finding nothing, apparently, worth the trouble of thinking about,
stood Diana in such good stead, that she found no unpleasantness or
restriction in being more or less a prisoner in her own rooms on her
return to the Château Fragonard. The lovely house was thrown open to
the usual callers and neighbours,--people came and went,--the gardens,
glorious now with a wealth of blossom, were the favourite resort of
many visitors to Madame Dimitrius and her son,--and Diana, looking
from her pretty _salon_ through one of the windows which had so deep
an embrasure that she could see everything without any fear of herself
being discovered, often watched groups of men and smartly attired women
strolling over the velvety lawns or down the carefully kept paths among
the flowers, though always with a curious lack of interest. They seemed
to have no connection with her own existence. True to his promise, Dr.
Dimitrius came every day to take her out when no other persons were in
the house or grounds,--and these walks were a vague source of pleasure
to her, though she felt she would have been happier and more at ease
had she been allowed to take them quite alone. Madame Dimitrius was
unwearying in her affectionate regard and attention, and always spent
the greater part of each day with her, displaying a tenderness and
consideration for her which six months previously would have moved
her to passionate gratitude, but which now only stirred in her mind
a faint sense of surprise. All her sensations were as of one, who,
by some mysterious means, had been removed from the comprehension of
human contact,--though her intimacy with what the world is pleased
to consider the non-reasoning things of creation had become keenly
intensified, and more closely sympathetic.

There was unconcealed disappointment among the few, who, during the
past autumn, had met her at the Château, when they were told she had
gone back to England. Baroness de Rousillon was, in particular, much
annoyed, for she had made a compact with the Marchese Farnese to
enter into close and friendly relations with Diana, and to find out
from her, if at all possible, the sort of work which went on in the
huge domed laboratory wherein Dimitrius appeared to pass so much of
his time. Farnese himself said little of his vexation,--but he left
Geneva almost immediately on hearing the news, and without informing
Dimitrius of his intention, went straight to London, resolved to
probe what he considered a “mystery” to its centre. As for Professor
Chauvet, no words could describe his surprise and deep chagrin at
Diana’s departure; he could not bring himself to believe that she had
left Geneva without saying good-bye to him. So troubled and perplexed
was he, that with his usual bluntness he made a clean confession to
Dimitrius of his proposal of marriage. Dimitrius heard him with grave
patience and a slight, supercilious uplifting of his dark eyebrows.

“I imagined as much!” he said, coldly, when he had heard all. “But Miss
May is not young, and I should have thought she would have been glad of
the chance of marriage you offered her. Did she give you any hope?”

Chauvet looked doubtfully reflective.

“She did and she didn’t,” he at last answered, rather ruefully. “And
yet--she’s not capricious--and I trust her. As you say, she’s not
young,--good heavens, what a heap of nonsense is talked about ‘young’
women!--frequently the most useless and stupid creatures!--only
thinking of themselves from morning till night!--Miss May is a fine,
intelligent creature--I should like to pass the few remaining years of
my life in her company.”

Dimitrius glanced him over with an air of disdainful compassion.

“I dare say she’ll write to you,” he said. “She’s the kind of woman who
might prefer to settle that sort of thing by letter.”

“Can you give me her address?” at once asked the Professor, eagerly.

“Not at the moment,” replied Dimitrius, composedly. “She has no fixed
abode at present,--she’s travelling with friends. As soon as I hear
from her, I will let you know!”

Chauvet, though always a trifle suspicious of other men’s meanings, was
disarmed by the open frankness with which this promise was given, and
though more or less uneasy in his own mind, allowed the matter to drop.
Dimitrius was unkindly amused at his discomfiture.

“Imagine it!” he thought--“That exquisite creation of mine wedded to so
unsatisfactory a product of ill-assorted elements!”

Meanwhile, Diana, imprisoned in her luxurious suite of rooms, had
nothing to complain of. She read many books, practised her music,
worked at her tapestry, and last, not least, studied herself. She had
begun to be worth studying. Looking in her mirror, she saw a loveliness
delicate and well-nigh unearthly, bathing her in its growing lustre as
in a mysteriously brilliant atmosphere. Her eyes shone with a melting
lustre like the eyes of a child appealing to be told some strange sweet
fairy legend,--her complexion was so fair as to be almost dazzling,
the pure ivory white of her skin showing soft flushes of pale rose with
the healthful pulsing of her blood--her lips were of a dewy crimson
tint such as one might see on a red flower-bud newly opened,--and as
she gazed at herself and reluctantly smiled at her own reflection, she
had the curious impression that she was seeing the picture of somebody
else in the glass,--somebody else who was young and enchantingly
pretty, while she herself remained plain and elderly. And yet this was
not the right view to take of her own personality, for apart altogether
from her outward appearance she was conscious of a new vitality,--an
abounding ecstasy of life,--a joy and strength which were well-nigh
incomprehensible,--for though these sensations dominated every fibre
of her being, they were not, as formerly, connected with any positive
human interest. For one thing, she scarcely thought of Dimitrius at
all, except that she had come to regard him as a sort of extraneous
being--an upper servant told off to wait upon her after the fashion of
Vasho,--and when she went out with him, she went merely because she
needed the fresh air and loved the open skies, not because she cared
for his company, for she hardly spoke to him. Her strange behaviour
completely puzzled him, but his deepening anxiety for the ultimate
success of his “experiment” deterred him from pressing her too far with
questions.

One evening during the first week in June, when the moon was showing a
half crescent in the sky, a light wind ruffled the hundreds of roses
on bush and stem that made the gardens fragrant, he went to her rooms
to propose a sail on the lake. He heard her playing the piano,--the
music she drew from the keys was wild and beautiful and new,--but as
he entered, she stopped abruptly and rose at once, her eyes glancing
him over carelessly as though he were more of an insect than a man. He
paused, hesitating.

“You want me?” she asked.

“For your own pleasure,--at least, I hope so!” he replied, almost
humbly. “It’s such a beautiful evening--would you come for a sail on
the lake? The wind is just right for it and the boat is ready.”

She made no reply, but at once threw a white serge cloak across her
shoulders, pulling its silk-lined hood over her head, and accompanied
him along a private passage which led from the upper floor of the house
to the garden.

“You like the idea?” he said, looking at her somewhat appealingly. She
lifted her eyes--bright and cold as stars on a frosty night.

“What idea?”

“This little trip on the lake?”

“Certainly,” she answered. “It has been very warm all day--it will be
cool on the water.”

Dimitrius bethought himself of one of the teachings of the
Rosicrucians: “Whoso is indifferent obtains all good. The more
indifferent you are, the purer you are, for to the indifferent, all
things are _One_!”

Some unusual influence there was radiating from her presence like a
fine air filled with suggestions of snow. It was cold, yet bracing, and
he drew a long breath as of a man who had scaled some perilous mountain
height and now found himself in a new atmosphere. She walked beside him
with a light swiftness that was almost aerial--his own movements seemed
to him by comparison abnormally heavy and clumsy. Seeking about in his
mind for some ordinary subject on which to hang a conversation, he
could find nothing. His wits had become as clumsy as his feet. Pushing
her hood a little aside, she looked at him.

“You had a garden-party to-day?” she queried.

“Yes,--if a few people to tea in the gardens is a garden-party,” he
answered.

“That’s what it is usually called,” said Diana, carelessly. “They are
generally very dull affairs. I thought so, when I watched your guests
from my window--they did not seem amused.”

“You cannot amuse people if they have no sense of amusement,”
he rejoined. “Nor can you interest them if they have no brains.
They walked among miracles of beauty--I mean the roses and other
flowers--without looking at them; the sunset over the Alpine range was
gorgeous, but they never saw it--their objective was food--that is to
say, tea, coffee, cakes and ices--anything to put down the ever open
maw of appetite. What would you? They are as they are made!”

She offered no comment.

“And you,” he continued in a voice that grew suddenly eager and
impassioned--“You are as you are made!--as _I_ have made you!”

She let her hood fall back and turned her face fully upon him. Its
fairness, with the moonlight illumining it, was of spiritual delicacy,
and yet there was something austere in it as in the face of a
sculptured angel.

“As _I_ have made you!” he repeated, with triumphant emphasis. “The
majority of men and women are governed chiefly by two passions,
Appetite and Sex. You have neither Appetite nor Sex,--therefore you are
on a higher plane----”

“Than yours?” she asked.

The question stung him a little, but he answered at once:

“Possibly!”

She smiled,--a little cold smile like the flicker of a sun-ray on
ice. They had arrived at the border of the lake, and a boat with the
picturesque lateen sail of Geneva awaited them with Vasho in charge.
Diana stepped in and seated herself among a pile of cushions arranged
for her comfort,--Dimitrius took the helm, and Vasho settled himself
down to the management of the ropes. The graceful craft was soon
skimming easily along the water with a fair light wind, and Diana in a
half-reclining attitude, looking up at the splendid sky, found herself
wishing that she could sail on thus, away from all things present to
all things future! All things past seemed so long past!--she scarcely
thought of them,--and “all things future”?--What would they be?

Dimitrius, seated close beside her at the stern, suddenly addressed her
in a low, cautious tone.

“You know that this is the first week in June?”

“Yes.”

“Your time is drawing very near,” he went on. “On the evening of the
twentieth you will come to me in the laboratory. And you will be
ready--for anything!”

She heard him, apparently uninterested, her face still upturned to the
stars.

“For anything!” she repeated dreamily--“For an End, or a new Beginning!
Yes,--I quite understand. I shall be ready.”

“Without hesitation or fear?”

“Have I shown either?”

He ventured to touch the small hand that lay passively outside the
folds of her cloak.

“No,--you have been brave, docile, patient, obedient,” he answered.
“All four things rare qualities in a woman!--or so men say! You would
have made a good wife, only your husband would have crushed you!”

She smiled.

“I quite agree. But what crowds of women have been so ‘crushed’ since
the world began!”

“They have been useful as the mothers of the race,” said Dimitrius.

“The mothers of what race?” she asked.

“The human race, of course!”

“Yes, but which section of it?” she persisted, with a cold little
laugh. “For instance,--the mothers of the Assyrian race seem to have
rather wasted their energies! What has become of _that_ race which they
bore, bred and fostered? Where is the glory of those past peoples?
What was the use of them? They have left nothing but burnt bricks and
doubtful records!”

“True!--but Destiny has strange methods, and their existence may have
been necessary.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I fail to see it!” she said. “To me it all seems waste--wanton, wicked
waste. Man lives in some wrong, mistaken way--the real joy of life must
be to dwell on earth like a ray of light, warming and fructifying all
things unconsciously--coming from the sun and returning again to the
sun, never losing a moment of perfect splendour!”

“But, to have no consciousness is death,” said Dimitrius. “A ray of
light is indifferent to joy. Consciousness with intelligence makes
happiness.”

She was silent.

“You are well?” he asked, gently.

“Perfectly!”

“And happy?”

“I suppose so.”

“You cannot do more than suppose? People will hardly understand you if
you can only ‘suppose’ you are happy!”

She flashed a look upon him of disdain which he felt rather than saw.

“Do I expect people to understand me?” she demanded. “Do I wish them to
do so? I am as indifferent to ‘people’ and their opinions as you are!”

“That is saying a great deal!” he rejoined. “But,--I am a man--you are
a woman. Women must study conventions----”

“I need not,” she interrupted him. “Nor should you speak of my sex,
since you yourself say I am sexless.”

He was silent. She had given him a straight answer. Some words of a
great scientist from whom he had gained much of his own knowledge came
back to his memory:

“To attain true and lasting life, all passions must be subjugated,--all
animosities of nature destroyed. Attraction draws, not only its own to
itself, but the aura or spirit of other things which it appropriates
so far as it is able. And this appropriation or fusion of elements is
either life-giving or destructive.”

He repeated the words “This appropriation or fusion of elements is
either life-giving or destructive”--to himself, finding a new force in
their meaning and application.

“Diana,” he said, presently, “I am beginning to find you rather a
difficult puzzle!”

“I have found myself so for some time,” she answered. “But it does not
matter. Nothing really matters.”

“Nothing?” he queried. “Not even love? That used to be a great matter
with you!”

She laughed, coldly.

“Love is a delusion,” she said. “And no doubt I ‘used’ to think the
delusion a reality. I know better now.”

He turned the helm about, and their boat began to run homeward, its
lateen sail glistening like the uplifted wing of a sea-gull. Above
them, the snowy Alpine range showed white as the tips of frozen
waves--beneath, the water rippled blue-black, breaking now and again
into streaks of silver.

“I’m afraid you have imbibed some of my cynicism,” he said, slowly.
“It is, perhaps, a pity! For now, when you have come to think love a
‘delusion,’ you will be greatly loved! It is always the way! If you
have nothing to give to men, it is then they clamour for everything!”

He looked at her as he spoke and saw her smile--a cruel little smile.

“You are lovely now,” he went on, “and you will be lovelier. For
all I can tell, you may attain an almost maddening beauty. And a
sexless beauty is like that of a goddess,--slaying its votaries as
with lightning. Supposing this to be so with you, you should learn
to love!--if only out of pity for those whom your indifference might
destroy!”

She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him curiously. The
moonlight showed his dark, inscrutable face, and the glitter of
the steely eyes under the black lashes, and there was a shadow of
melancholy upon his features.

“You forget!” she said--“You forget that I am old! I am not really
young in the sense you expect me to be. I know myself. Deep in my brain
the marks of lonely years and griefs are imprinted--of disappointed
hopes, and cruelties inflicted on me for no other cause than too much
love and constancy--those marks are ineffaceable! So it happens that
beneath the covering of youth which your science gives me, and under
the mark of this outward loveliness, I, the same Diana, live with a
world’s experience, as one in prison,--knowing that whatever admiration
or liking I may awaken, it is for my outward seeming, not for my real
self! And you can talk of love! Love is a divinity of the soul, not of
the body!”

“And how many human beings have ‘soul,’ do you think?” he queried,
ironically. “Not one in ten million!”

The boat ran in to shore and they landed. Diana looked back wistfully
at the rippling light on the water.

“It was a beautiful sail!” she said, more naturally than she had
expressed herself for many days. “Thank you for taking me!”

She smiled frankly up into his eyes as she spoke, and her spiritualised
loveliness thrilled him with sudden surprise.

“It is I who must thank you for coming,” he answered, very gently. “I
know how keenly you are now attuned to Nature--you have the light of
the sun in your blood and force of the air in your veins, and whether
you admit it or not, you enjoy your life without consciousness of
joy! Strange!--but true!--yet--Diana--believe me, I want you to be
happy!--not only to ‘suppose’ yourself happy! Your whole being must
radiate like the sunlight, of which it is now in part composed.”

She made no reply, but walked in her floating, graceful way beside him
to the house, where he took her to the door of her own apartments, and
there left her with a kindly “good-night.”

“I shall not see very much of you now till the evening of the
twentieth,” he said. “And then I hope you will not only pray for
yourself, but--for me!”




CHAPTER XIX


The fated eve,--eve of the longest day in the year,--came in a soft
splendour of misty violet skies and dimly glittering stars--after
lovely hours of light and warmth which had bathed all nature in radiant
summer glory from earliest dawn till sunset. Diana had risen with the
sun itself in the brightest of humours without any forebodings of
evil or danger resulting from the trial to which she was ready to be
subjected, and when Madame Dimitrius came up to spend the afternoon
with her as usual, she was gayer and more conversational than she had
been for many a day. It was Madame who seemed depressed and anxious,
and Diana, looking quite charming in her simple gown of white batiste
with a bunch of heliotrope at her bosom, rather rallied her on her low
spirits.

“Ah, my dear!” sighed the old lady--“If I could only understand
Féodor!--but I cannot! He does not seem to be my son--he grows harsh
and impatient,--this wicked science of his has robbed him of nature!
He is altogether unlike what he used to be when he first began these
studies--and to-day the reason I am sad is that he tells me I am not
to come to you any more till the afternoon of the twenty-fifth!--five
days!--it seems so strange! It frightens me----”

“Dear, why be frightened?” and Diana smiled encouragingly. “You know
now what he is trying to do--and you can see for yourself that he has
partially succeeded! I’m quite pleased to hear that you are coming to
see me again in five days!--that shows he thinks I shall be alive to
receive you!”

Madame Dimitrius looked at her in a scared way.

“Alive? But of course! Surely, oh, surely, you have never thought it
possible----”

“That Science may kill me?” Diana finished, carelessly. “Very naturally
I _have_ thought it possible! Science sometimes kills more than it
saves,--owing to our fumbling ignorance. And I wonder--supposing Dr.
Féodor makes sure of his discovery--supposing he _can_ give youth and
beauty to those who are willing to go through his experiment--I wonder
whether it is worth while to possess these attractions without any
emotional satisfaction?”

“Then you are not satisfied?” asked Madame a little sorrowfully. “You
are not happy?”

Diana moved to the open window, and with an expressive gesture, pointed
to the fair landscape of lake and mountain.

“With this I am happy!” she answered. “With this I am satisfied! I feel
that all this is part of _Me_!--it is one with me and I with it--my own
blood cannot be closer to me than this air and light. But the pleasure
a woman is supposed to take in her looks if she is beautiful,--the
delight in pretty things for one’s self,--this does not touch me. I
have lost all such sensations. When I was a girl I rather liked to look
at myself in the glass,--to try contrasts of colour or wear a dainty
jewelled trinket,--but now when I see in the mirror a lovely face that
does not belong to me, I am not even interested!”

“But, my dear Diana, the lovely face _does_ belong to you!” exclaimed
Madame Dimitrius. “You are yourself, and no other!”

Diana looked at her rather wistfully.

“I am not so sure of that!” she said. “Now please don’t think I am
losing my senses, for I’m not! I’m perfectly sane, and my thoughts
are particularly clear. But Science is a terrible thing!--it is a
realisation more or less of the Egyptian Sphinx--a sort of monster
with the face of a spirit and the body of an animal. Science, dear
Madame--please don’t look so frightened--has lately taught men more
about killing each other than curing! It also tells us that nothing
is, or can be lost; all sights and sounds are garnered up in the
treasure-houses of air and space. The forms and faces of human
creatures long dead are about us,--the _aura_ of their personalities
remains though their bodies have perished. Now _I_ feel just as if I
had unconsciously absorbed somebody else’s outward personality--and
here I am, making use of it as a sort of cover to my own. My own
interior self admires my outward appearance without any closer
connection than that felt by anyone looking at a picture. I live
_within_ the picture--and no one seeing the picture could think it was
I!”

Poor Madame Dimitrius listened to Diana’s strange analysis of herself
with feelings of mingled bewilderment and terror. In her own mind she
began to be convinced that her son’s “experiment” would destroy his
“subject’s” mentality.

“It seems all very dreadful!” she murmured, tremblingly. “And I think,
dear Diana, you should say something of this to Féodor. For I am afraid
he is making you suffer, and that you are unhappy.”

“No,--that is not so,” and Diana smiled reassuringly. “I do not
suffer--I have forgotten what suffering is like! And I am not unhappy,
because what is called ‘happiness’ has no special meaning for me.
I exist--that is all! I am conscious of the principal things of
existence--air, light, movement--these keep me living without any real
effort or desire on my own part to live!”

She spoke in a dreamy way, with a far-off look in her eyes,--then,
perceiving that Madame Dimitrius looked nervously distressed, she
brought herself back from her dreamland as it were with an effort, and
went on:

“You must not worry about me in the least, dear Madame! After all,
it may be an excellent thing for me that I appear to have done with
emotions! One has only to think how people constantly distress
themselves for nothing! People who imagine themselves in love, for
instance!--how they torment themselves night and day!--if they fail
to get letters from each other!--if they quarrel!--if they think
themselves neglected!--why, it is a perpetual turbulence! Then the
parents who spend all their time looking after their children!--and
the children grow up and go their own way,--they grow from pretty
little angels into great awkward men and women, and it is as if one had
played with charming dolls, and then saw them suddenly changed into
clothes-props! Well, I am free from all these tiresome trivialities--I
have what I think the gods must have,--Indifference!”

Madame Dimitrius sighed.

“Ah, Diana, it is a pity you were never made a happy wife and mother!”
she said, softly.

“I thought so too,--once!” and Diana laughed carelessly--“But I’m sure
I’m much better off as I am! Now, dear, we’ll part for the present. I
want to rest a little--and to say my prayers--before Dr. Féodor sends
for me.”

Madame at once rose to leave the room. But, before doing so, she took
Diana in her arms and kissed her tenderly.

“God bless and guard thee, dear child!” she murmured. “Thou art brave
and loyal, and I have grown to love thee! If Féodor should bring thee
to harm, he is no son of mine!”

For a moment the solitary-hearted, unloved woman felt a thrill of
pleasure in this simple expression of affection,--the real sensation
of youth filled her veins, as if she were a confiding girl with
her mother’s arms about her, and something like tears sprang to her
eyes. But she suppressed the emotion quickly. Smiling and apparently
unmoved, she let the gentle old lady go from her, and watched her to
the last as she moved with the careful step of age along the entresol
and out through the entrance to the head of the staircase, where she
disappeared. Once alone, Diana stood for a few moments lost in thought.
She knew instinctively that her life was at stake,--Dimitrius had
reached the final test of his mysterious dealings with the innermost
secrets of Nature, and he had passed the “problem of the Fourth,
Sixth and Seventh,” which according to his theories, meant certain
refractions and comminglings of light. Now he had arrived at “the
ultimate culmination of the Eighth,” or, as he described it “the close
or the rebound of the Octave,”--and in this “rebound” or “culmination”
his subject, Diana, was to take part as a mote within a sun-ray. She
did not disguise from herself the danger in which she stood,--but she
had thought out every argument for and against the ordeal which she
had voluntarily accepted. She measured the value of her life from
each standpoint and found it _nil_, except in so far as her love for
natural beauty was concerned. She would be sorry, she said inwardly, to
leave the trees, the flowers, the birds, the beautiful things of sky
and sea, but she would not be sorry at all to see the last of human
beings! With all her indifference, which even to her own consciousness,
enshrined her as within barriers of ice, her memory was keen,--she
looked back to the few months of distance and time which separated her
from the old life of the dutiful daughter to inconsiderate and selfish
parents--and beyond that, she went still further and saw herself as
a young girl full of hope and joy, given up heart and soul to the
illusion of love, from which she was torn by the rough hand of the
very man to whom she had consecrated her every thought. In all this
there was nothing enviable or regrettable that she should now be sorry
or afraid to die--and in her life to come--if she lived--what would
there be? Her eyes turned almost without her own consent towards the
mirror--and there she read the answer. She would possess the power to
rule and sway the hearts of all men,--if she cared! But now it had so
happened that she did _not_ care. Smouldering in her soul like the
last spent ashes of a once fierce fire, there was just one passion
left--the strong desire of vengeance on all the forces that had spoilt
and embittered her natural woman’s life. She was no longer capable of
loving, but she knew she could hate! A woman seldom loves deeply and
truly more than once in her life--she stakes her all on the one chance
and hope of happiness, and the man who takes advantage of that love and
ruthlessly betrays it may well beware. His every moment of existence is
fraught with danger, for there is no destructive power more active and
intense than love transformed to hate through falsehood and injustice.
And Diana admitted to herself, albeit reluctantly, that she could hate
deeply and purposefully. She hated herself for the fact that it was
so,--but she was too honest not to acknowledge it. Her spirit had been
wounded and maltreated by all on whom she had set her affections,--and
as her way of life had been innocent and harmless, she resented the
unfairness of her fate. Wrong or right, she longed to retaliate in some
way on the petty slights, the meannesses, the hypocrisies and neglect
of those who had assisted in spoiling her youth and misjudging her
character, and though she was willing to “love her enemies” in a broad
and general sense, she was not ready to condone the easy callousness
and cruelty of the persons and circumstances which had robbed her of
the natural satisfaction and peace of happy womanhood.

For a long time she sat at the open window, lost in a reverie--till
she saw the sun beginning to sink in a splendid panoply of crimson and
gold, with streaming clouds of fleecy white and pale amber spreading
from east to west, from north to south, like the unfurling flags of
some great fairy’s victorious army, and then a sudden thrill ran
through her blood which made her heart beat and her face grow pale--it
was close upon the destined hour when--ah!--she would not stop to
think of the “when” or the “where”--instinctively she knelt down, and
with folded hands said her prayers simply as a child, though with more
than a child’s fervour. She had scarcely breathed the last “Amen,”
when a light tap came on her door, and on her calling “Come in”--Vasho
entered, carrying a small parcel with a note from Dimitrius. Handing it
to her, he signified by his usual expressive signs that he would wait
outside for the answer. As soon as he had retired, she opened the note
and read as follows:

 “You will please disrobe yourself completely, and wear only this
 garment which I send. No other material must touch any part of your
 body. Let your hair be undone and quite free--no hairpins must remain
 in it, and no metal of any sort must be upon your person,--no ring,
 bracelet, or anything whatsoever. When you are ready, Vasho will bring
 you to me in the laboratory.”

Having mastered these instructions she undid the packet which
accompanied them,--and unfolded a plain, long, white robe of the most
exquisitely beautiful texture woven apparently of many double strands
of silk. It was perfectly opaque--not the slightest glimmer of the
light itself could be seen through it, yet it shone with a curious
luminance as though it had been dipped in frosted silver. For a moment
she hesitated. A tremor of natural dread shook her nerves,--then, with
a determined effort, mastering herself, she hurried into her bedroom,
and there undressing, laid all her clothes neatly folded up on the
bed. The action reminded her of the way she had folded up her clothes
with similar neatness and left them on the rocks above the sea on the
morning she had decided to effect a lasting disappearance by “drowning.”

“And now”--she thought--“Now comes a far greater plunge into the
unknown than ever I could have imagined possible!”

In a few minutes she was “attired for the sacrifice,” as she said,
addressing these words to herself in the mirror, and a very fair
victim she looked. The strange, white sheeny garment in which she was
clothed from neck to feet gave her the appearance of an angel in a
picture,--and the youthful outline of her face, the delicacy of her
skin, the deep brilliancy of her eyes, all set off against a background
of glorious amber-brown hair, which rippled in plentiful waves over her
shoulders and far below her waist, made her look more of a vision than
a reality.

“Good-bye, you poor, lonely Diana!” she said, softly. “If you never
come back I am glad I saw you just like this--for once!”

She kissed her hand to her own reflection, then turned and went
swiftly through the rooms, not looking back. Vasho, waiting for her
in the outer hall, could not altogether disguise his wonderment at
sight of her,--but he saluted in his usual passively humble Eastern
manner, and led the way, signing to her to follow. The house was very
quiet,--they met no one, and very soon arrived at the ponderous door of
the laboratory, which swung noiselessly upwards to give them entrance.
Within, there seemed to be a glowing furnace of fire; the great Wheel
emitted such ceaseless and brilliant showers of flame in its rotations
that the whole place was filled with light that almost blinded the
eyes, and Diana could scarcely see Dimitrius, when, like a black
speck detaching itself from the surrounding sea of crimson vapour,
he advanced to meet her. He was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were
feverishly brilliant.

“So you have come!” he said. “I am such a sceptic that at this last
moment I doubted whether you would!”

She looked at him steadfastly, but answered nothing.

“You are brave--you are magnificent!” he went on, his voice sinking to
a lower tone--“But, Diana--I want you to say one thing before I enter
on this final task--and that is--‘I forgive you!’”

“I will say it if you like,” she answered. “But why should I? I have
nothing to forgive!”

“Ah, you will not see,--you cannot understand----”

“I see and understand perfectly!” she said, quickly. “But, if I live,
my life remains my own--if I die, it will be your affair--but there can
be no cause for grudge either way!”

“Diana,” he repeated, earnestly--“Say just this--‘Féodor, I forgive
you!’”

She smiled--a strange little smile of pity and pride commingled, and
stretched out both hands to him. To her surprise he knelt before her
and kissed them.

“Féodor, I forgive you!” she said, very sweetly, in the penetrating
accents which were so exclusively her own.--“Now, Magician, get to your
work quickly! Apollonius of Tyana and Paracelsus were only children
playing on the shores of science compared to you! When _you_ are ready,
_I_ am!”

He sprang up from his kneeling attitude, and for a moment looked about
him as one half afraid and uncertain. His amazing piece of mechanism,
the great Wheel, was revolving slowly and ever more slowly, for
outside in the heavens the sun had sunk, and the massed light within
the laboratory’s crystal dome was becoming less and less dazzling.
Astonishing reflections of prismatic colour were gathered in the dark
water below the Wheel, as though millions of broken rainbows had
been mixed with its mysterious blackness. Quietly Diana waited, her
white-robed figure contrasting singularly with all the fire-glow which
enveloped her in its burning lustre,--and her heart beat scarcely one
pulse the quicker when Dimitrius approached her, holding with extreme
care a small but massive crystal cup. It was he who trembled, not she,
as she looked at him inquiringly. He spoke, striving to steady his
voice to its usual even tone of composure.

“This cup,” he said--“if it contains anything, contains the true
elixir for which all scientists have searched through countless ages.
They failed, because they never prepared the cells of the human body
to receive it. I have done all this preparatory work with you, and
I have done it more successfully than I ever hoped. Every tiniest
cell or group of cells that goes to form your composition as a human
entity is now ready to absorb this distillation of the particles which
generate and shape existence. This is the Sacramental Cup of Life! It
is what early mystics dreamed of as the Holy Grail. Do not think that
I blaspheme!--no!--I seek to show the world what Science can give it
of true and positive communion with the mind of God! The elements that
commingle to make this Universe and all that is therein, are the real
‘bread and wine’ of God’s love!--and whoever can and will absorb such
food may well ‘preserve body and soul unto everlasting life.’ Such
is the great union of Spirit with Matter--such is the truth after
which the Churches have been blindly groping in their symbolic ‘holy
communion’ feebly materialised in ‘bread and wine’ as God’s ‘body
and blood.’ But the actual ‘body and blood’ of the Divine are the
ever-changing but never destructible elements of all positive Life and
Consciousness. And you are prepared to receive them.”

A thrill of strange awe ran through Diana as she heard. His reasoning
was profound, yet lucid,--it was true enough, she thought; that
God,--that is to say, the everlasting spirit of creative power,--is
everywhere and in everything,--yet to the average mind it never
occurs to inquire deeply as to the subtle elements wherewith Divine
Intelligence causes this “everywhere” and “everything” to be made. She
remained silent, her eyes fixed on the crystal cup, knowing that for
her it held destiny.

“You are prepared,” resumed Dimitrius. “I have left nothing undone. And
yet--you are but woman----”

“Not weaker than man!” she interrupted him, quickly. “Though men have
sought to make her so in order to crush her more easily! Give me the
cup!”

He looked at her in undisguised admiration.

“Wait!” he said. “You shall not lose yourself in the infinite profound,
without knowing something of the means whereby you are moved. This
cup, as you see, is of purest crystal, hewn rough from rocks that may
have been fused in the fires of the world’s foundation. Within it are
all the known discoverable particles of life’s essence, and when I say
‘discoverable,’ I wish you to understand that many of these particles
were not discovered or discoverable at all till I set my soul to
the work of a spy on the secrets of Nature. I have already told you
that this test may be life or death to you--if it should be death,
then I have failed utterly! For, by all the closest and most minute
mathematical measurements, it should be life!”

Smiling, she stretched out her hand:

“Give me the cup!” she repeated.

“If it should be death,” he went on, speaking more to himself than to
her--“I think it will be more your fault than mine. Not voluntarily
your fault, except that perhaps you may have concealed from me details
of your personality and experience which I ought to have known. And
yet I believe you to be entirely honest. Success, as I have told you,
depends on the perfect health and purity of the cells--so that if
you were an unprincipled woman, or if you had led a tainted life--or
you were a glutton, or one who drank and took drugs for imaginary
ailments--the contents of this cup would kill you instantly, because
the cells having been weakened and lacerated could not stand the inrush
of new force. But had you been thus self-injured, you would have shown
signs of it during these months of preparation, and so far I have seen
nothing that should hinder complete victory.”

“Then why delay any longer?”--and Diana gave a gesture of visible
impatience--“It is more trying to me to wait here in suspense on your
words than to die outright!”

He looked at her half pleadingly--then turned his eyes towards the
great Wheel, which was now, after sunset, going round with an almost
sleepy slowness. One moment more of hesitation, and then with a firm
hand he held out the cup.

“Take it!” he said--“And may God be with you!”

With a smile she accepted it, and putting her lips to the crystal rim,
drained its contents to the last drop. For half or quarter of a second
she stood upright,--then, as though struck by a flash of lightning, she
fell senseless.

Quickly Dimitrius sprang to her side, picked up the empty cup as it
rolled from her hand, and called:

“Vasho!”

Instantly the tall Ethiopian appeared, and obeying his master’s
instructions, assisted him to lift the prone figure and lay it on a
bench near at hand. Then they both set to work to move a number of
ropes and pulleys which, noiselessly manipulated, proved to be an
ingenious device for lowering a sort of stretcher or couch, canopied in
tent-like fashion and made entirely of the same sort of double stranded
silk material in which Diana had clothed herself for her “sacrifice.”
This stretcher was lowered from the very centre of the dome of the
laboratory,--and upon it the two men, Dimitrius and his servant,
carefully and almost religiously placed the passive form, which now had
an appearance of extreme rigidity, like that of a corpse. Dimitrius
looked anxiously at the closed eyes, the waxen pallor of the features,
and the evident tension of the muscles of the neck and throat,--then,
with a kind of reckless swiftness and determination, he began to bind
the apparently lifeless body round and round with broad strips of the
same luminous sheeny stuff which composed the seeming funeral couch
of his “subject” in the fashion of an Egyptian mummy. Vasho, acting
under orders, assisted him as before--and very soon Diana’s form was
closely swathed from head to foot, only the eyes, mouth and ears
being left uncovered. The laboratory was now illumined only by its
own mysterious fires--outside was a dark summer sky, powdered with
faint stars, and every lingering reflex of the sunset had completely
vanished. With the utmost care and minutest attention Dimitrius now
looked to every detail of the strange, canopied bier on which the
insensible subject of his experiment was laid,--then, giving a sign
to Vasho, the ropes and pulleys by which it was suspended were once
more set in motion, and slowly, aerially and without a sound it swung
away and across the dark pool of water to a position just under the
great Wheel. The Wheel, revolving slowly and casting out lambent rays
of fire, illumined it as a white tent might be illumined on the night
blackness of a bare field,--it rested just about four feet above the
level of the water and four feet below the turning rim of the Wheel.
When safely and accurately lodged in this position, Dimitrius and his
servant fastened the ropes and pulleys to a projection in the wall,
attaching them to a padlock of which Dimitrius himself took the key.
Then, pausing, they looked at each other. Vasho’s glittering eyes,
rolling like dark moonstones under his jetty brows, asked mutely a
thousand questions; he was stricken with awe and terror and gazed at
his master as beseechingly as one might fancy an erring mortal might
look at an incarnate devil sent to punish him, but in the set white
face of Dimitrius there was no sign of response or reassurance. Two or
three minutes passed, and, going to the edge of the pool, Dimitrius
looked steadily across it at the white pavilion with its hidden burden
swung between fire and water,--then slowly, but resolutely, turned
away. As he did so, Vasho suddenly fell on his knees, and catching at
his master’s hand, implored him by eloquent signs of fear, pity and
distress, not to abandon the hapless woman, thus bound and senseless,
to a fate more strange and perhaps more terrible than any human being
had yet devised to torture his fellow human being. Dimitrius shook off
his touch impatiently, and bade him rise from his knees.

“Do not pray to _me_!” he said, harshly--“Pray to your God, if you have
one! _I_ have a God whose Intelligence is so measureless and so true
that I know He will not punish me for spending the brain with which
He has endowed me, in an effort to find out one of His myriad secrets.
There was a time in this world when men knew nothing of the solar
system,--now God has permitted them to know it. In the same way we know
nothing of the secret of life, but shall we dare to say that God will
never permit us to know? That would be blasphemy indeed! We ‘suffer
fools gladly,’--we allow tricksters such as ‘mediums,’ fortune-tellers
and the like to flourish on their frauds, but we give little help to
the man of spiritual or psychological science, whose learning might
help us to conquer disease and death! No, Vasho!--your fears have no
persuasion for me!--I am thankful you are dumb! There is no more to
do--we may go!”

Vasho’s moonstone eyes still turned lingeringly and compassionately on
the white pavilion under the Wheel of fire. He made expressive signs
with his fingers, to which his master answered, almost kindly:

“She will die, you think! If so, my toil is wasted--my supreme
experiment is a failure! She must live. And I have sufficient faith in
the _accuracies_ of God and Nature as to be almost sure she _will_!
Come!”

He took the reluctant Vasho by the arm and led him to the mysterious
door, which swung up in its usual mysterious way at his touch. They
passed out, and as the portal swung down again behind them, Dimitrius
released a heavy copper bar from one side and clamped it across the
whole door, fastening it with lock and key.

“I do this in case you should be tempted to look in,” he said, with a
stern smile to his astonished attendant. “You have been faithful and
obedient so far--but you know the secret of opening this door when no
bar is placed across it,--but _with_ it!--ah, my Vasho!--the devil
himself may fumble in vain!”

Vasho essayed a feeble grin,--but his black skin looked a shade less
black, as he heard his master’s words and saw his resolute action.
Gone was the faint hope the poor blackamoor had entertained of being
of some use or rescue to the victim prisoned in the laboratory,--she
was evidently doomed to abide her fate. And Dimitrius walked with an
unfaltering step through the long corridor from the laboratory into
the hall of his house, and then sent Vasho about his usual household
business, while he himself went into the garden and looked at the
still beauty of the evening. Everywhere there was fragrance and
peace--innumerable stars clustered in the sky, and the faint outline
of the snowy Alps was dimly perceptible. From the lawn, he could see
the subdued glitter of the glass dome of the laboratory; at that moment
it had the effect of a crystal sphere with the palest of radiance
filtering through.

“And to-morrow is the longest day!” he said with a kind of rapt
exultation. “Pray Heaven the sun may shine with all its strongest
force and utmost splendour from its rising to its setting! So shall we
imprison the eternal fire!”




CHAPTER XX


The next morning dawned cloudlessly, and a burning sun blazed intense
summer heat through all the hours of the longest and loveliest day.
Such persistent warmth brought its own languor and oppression, and
though all the doors and windows of the Château Fragonard were left
open, Madame Dimitrius found herself quite overwhelmed by the almost
airless stillness, notwithstanding a certain under-wave of freshness
which always flowed from the mountains like a breathing of the snow.

“How is Diana?” she asked of her son, as, clad in a suit of cool white
linen, he sauntered in from the garden to luncheon.

“I believe she is very well,” he answered, composedly. “She has not
complained.”

“I hope she has nothing to complain of,” said the old lady, nervously.
“You promised me, Féodor, that you would not let her suffer.”

“I promised you that if she was unhappy or in pain, I would do my best
to spare her as much as possible,” he replied. “But, up to the present,
she is neither unhappy nor in pain.”

“You are sure?”

“Sure!”

Vasho, who was in attendance, stared at him in something of questioning
terror, and his mother watched him with a mute fondness of appeal in
her eyes which, however, he did not or would not see. She could not but
feel a certain pride in him as she looked at his fine, intellectual
face, rendered just now finer and more attractive by the tension of
his inward thought. Presently he met her searching, loving gaze with a
smile.

“Do you not think, Mother mine,” he said, “that I merit some of the
compassion you extend so lavishly to Miss May, who is, after all, a
stranger in our house? Can you not imagine it possible that I, too, may
suffer? Permit yourself to remember that it is now twenty-five years
since I started on this quest, and that during that time I have not
rested day or night without having my brain at work, puzzling out my
problem. Now that I have done all which seems to me humanly possible,
have you no thought of me and my utter despair if I fail?”

“But you will not fail----”

“In every science, for one success there are a million failures,”
he replied. “And dare I complain if I am one of the million? I have
been fortunate in finding a subject who is obedient, tractable, and
eminently courageous,--sometimes, indeed, I have wondered whether her
courage will not prove too much for me! She is a woman of character--of
strong, yet firmly suppressed emotions; and she has entered a
characterless household----”

“Characterless?” repeated Madame Dimitrius, in surprised tones--“Can
_you_ say that?”

“Of course! What play of character can be expected from people who are
as self-centred as you and I? You have no thought in life beyond me,
your erratic and unworthy son,--I have no thought beyond my scientific
work and its results. Neither you nor I take interest in human affairs
or human beings generally; any writer of books venturing to describe
us, would find nothing to relate, because we form no associations. We
let people come and go,--but we do not really care for them, and if
they stayed away altogether we should not mind.”

“Well, as far as that goes, Diana tells me she is equally indifferent,”
said Madame.

“Yes,--but her indifference is hardly of her own making,” he replied.
“She is not aware of its source or meaning. Her actual character and
temperament are deep as a deep lake over which a sudden and unusual
frost has spread a temporary coating of ice. She has emotions and
passions--rigidly and closely controlled. She cares for things, without
knowing she cares. And at any moment she may learn her own power----”

“A power which _you_ have given her,” interposed his mother.

“True,--and it may be a case of putting a sword into the hand that is
eager to kill,” he answered. “However, her strength will be of the
psychological type, which gross material men laugh at. _I_ do not
laugh, knowing the terrific force hidden within each one of us, behind
the veil of flesh and blood. Heavens!--what a world it would be if we
all lived according to the spirit rather than the body!--if we all
ceased to be coarse feeders and animal sensualists, and chose only the
purest necessaries for existence in health and sanity!--it would be
Paradise regained!”

“If your experiment succeeds as you hope,” said Madame Dimitrius, “what
will happen then? You will let Diana go?”

“She will go whether I ‘let’ her or not,” he replied. “She will have
done all I require of her.”

His mother was silent, and he, as though weary of the conversation,
presently rose and left the room. Stepping out on the lawn in the
full blaze of noonday, he looked towards the dome of the laboratory,
but could scarcely fix his eyes upon its extreme brilliancy, which
was blinding at every point. He felt very keenly that it was indeed
the longest day of the year; never had hours moved so slowly,--and
despite the summer glory of the day,--so drearily. His thoughts dwelt
persistently on the bound and imprisoned form swung in solitude
under the great Wheel, which he knew must now be revolving at
almost lightning speed, churning the water beneath it into prismatic
spray,--and every now and then a strong temptation beset him to go and
unlock the door of the prison house, and see whether his victim had
wakened to the consciousness of her condition. But he restrained this
impulse.

With evening the slender curve of the new moon glided into the sky,
looking like the pale vision of a silver sickle, and a delicious
calm pervaded the air. His thoughts gradually took on a more human
tendency,--he allowed himself to pity his “subject.” After all,
what an arid sort of fate had been hers! The only child of one of
those painfully respectable British couples who never move out of
the conventional rut, and for whom the smallest expression or honest
opinion is “bad form,”--and herself endowed (by some freak of Nature)
with exceptional qualities of brain, what a neutral and sad-coloured
existence hers had been when love and the hope of marriage had deserted
her! No wonder she had resolved to break away and seek some outlet for
her cramped and imprisoned mentality.

“Though marriage is drab-coloured enough!” he mused--“Unless husband
and wife are prudent, and agree to live apart from each other for
so many months in the year. And now--if my experiment succeeds she
will make a fool or a lunatic of every man her eyes rest upon--except
myself!”

The days wore away slowly. As each one passed, Madame Dimitrius grew
more and more uneasy, and more and more her eyes questioned the
unresponsive face of her son. Vasho, too, could not forbear gazing with
a kind of appealing terror at his master’s composed features and easy
demeanour; it was more than devilish, he thought, that a man could
comport himself thus indifferently when he had a poor human victim shut
up within a laboratory where the two devouring elements of fire and
water held the chief sway. However, there was nothing to be done. A
figure of stone or iron was not more immovable than Dimitrius when once
bent to the resolved execution of a task, no matter how difficult such
task might be. Looking at the cold, indomitable expression of the man,
one felt that he would care nothing for the loss of a thousand lives,
if by such sacrifice he could attain the end in view. But though his
outward equanimity remained undisturbed, he was inwardly disquieted
and restless. He saw two alternatives to his possible success. His
victim might die,--in which case her body would crumble to ashes in the
process to which it was being subjected,--or she might lose her senses.
Death would be kinder than the latter fate, but he was powerless to
determine either. And even at the back of his mind there lurked a dim
suggestion of some other result which he could not formulate or reckon
with.

The longest waiting must have an end, but never to his thought did a
longer period of time stretch itself out between the evening of the
twentieth of June and that of the twenty-fourth, Midsummer Day. The
weather remained perfect; intensely warm, bright and still. Not a
cloud crossed the burning blue of the daylight, and at evening, the
young moon, slightly broadening from a slender sickle to the curve
of a coracle boat floating whitely in the deep ether, shed fairy
silver over the lake and the Alpine snows above it. During these
days, many people of note and scientific distinction called at the
Château Fragonard,--Féodor Dimitrius was a personage to be reckoned
with in many departments of knowledge, and his exquisite gardens
afforded coolness and shade to those wanderers from various lands who
were touring Switzerland in search of health and change of scene.
Near neighbours and acquaintances also came and went, but such is
the generally vague attitude of mind assumed by ordinary folk to
other than themselves, that scarcely any among the few who had met
Diana and accepted her as a chance visitor to Madame Dimitrius, now
remembered her, except the Baron and Baroness de Rousillon, who still
kept up a slight show of interest as to her whereabouts, though their
questions were lightly evaded and never fully answered. Professor
Chauvet, irritated and unhappy at receiving no news whatever of the
woman for whom he had conceived a singular but sincere affection, had
taken it into his head to go suddenly to Paris, to see after his house
and garden there, which had long been unoccupied; a fancy possessed
him that if, or when, Diana did write to him, he would answer her
from Paris, so that they might meet there or in London, without the
surveillance or comment of Dimitrius. Meanwhile, Dimitrius himself,
a figure of impenetrable reserve and cold courtesy, let his visitors
come and go as they listed, apparently living the life of a scientist
absorbed in studies too profound to allow himself to be troubled or
distracted by the opinions of the outer world.

Midsummer Day, the Feast of St. John, and a day of poetic and
superstitious observance, came at last and drifted along in a stream
of gold and azure radiance, the sun sinking round as a rose in a sky
without a cloud. To the last moment of its setting Dimitrius waited,
watch in hand. All day long he had wandered aimlessly in the garden
among his flowers, talking now and then to his gardeners, and stopping
at every point where he could see the crystal dome of his laboratory
shine clear like the uplifted minaret of some palace of the East, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that he compelled himself to walk
with a slow and indifferent mien when the moment arrived for him to
return to the Château. His heart galloped like a run-away race-horse,
while he forced his feet into a sauntering and languid pace as though
he were more than oppressed by the heat of the day,--and he stopped
for a moment to speak to his mother, whose reclining chair was in the
loggia where she could enjoy the view of the gardens and the fountains
in full play.

“I am--” he said, and paused,--then went on--“I am going to the
laboratory for an hour or two. If I am late for dinner, do not wait for
me.”

Madame Dimitrius, busy with some delicate lacework, looked up at him
inquiringly.

“Are you seeing Diana this evening?” she asked.

He nodded assent.

“Give her my love and tell her how glad I am that her days of solitude
are over, and that I shall come to her to-morrow as soon as you will
allow me.”

He nodded again, and with a tender hand stroked the silver bandeaux of
the old lady’s pretty hair.

“After all, old age is quite a beautiful thing!” he said, and stooping,
he kissed her on the brow. “It is, perhaps, wrong that we should wish
to be always young?”

He passed on then, and, entering his library, rang a bell. Vasho
appeared.

“Vasho, the hour has come!” he said, whereat Vasho, the dumb, uttered
an inarticulate animal sound of terror. “Either I have succeeded, or I
have failed. Let us go and see!”

He paused for a moment, his eyes resting on the mysterious steel
instrument, which, always working in its accustomed place on its
block of crystal, struck off its tiny sparks of fire with unceasing
regularity.

“_You_ gave me the first clue!” he said, addressing it. “You were a
fluke--a chance--a stray hint from the unseen. And you will go on for
ever if nothing disturbs your balance--if nothing shakes your exact
mathematical poise. So will the Universe similarly go on for ever,
if similarly undisturbed. All a matter of calculation, equality of
distribution and exact poise--designed by a faultless Intelligence! An
Intelligence which we are prone to deny--a Divinity we dare to doubt!
Man perplexes himself with a million forms of dogma which he calls
‘religions,’ when there is truly only one religion possible for all the
world, and that is the intelligent, reasoning, devout worship of the
true God as made manifest in His works. These works none but the few
will study, preferring to delude themselves with the fantastic spectres
of their own imaginations. Yet, when we _have_ learned what in time we
must know,--the words of the Evangelist may be fulfilled: ‘I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the first earth and the first heaven were
passed away.... And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain.’ So we may have a joyous
world, where youth and life are eternal, and where never a heart-throb
of passion or grief breaks the halcyon calm! Shall we care for it, I
wonder? Will it not prove monotonous?--and when all is smooth sailing,
shall we not long for a storm?”

A quick sigh escaped him,--then remembering Vasho’s presence, he shook
off his temporary abstraction.

“Come, Vasho!” he said, “I must go and find this marvel of my
science--living or dead! And don’t look so terrified!--one would think
_you_ were the victim! Whatever happens, _you_ are safe!”

Vasho made expressive signs of apologetic humility and appeal, to which
Dimitrius gave no response save an indulgent smile.

“Come!” he repeated. They left the library, Dimitrius leading the way,
and walked through the long corridor to the door of the laboratory.
Gleams of gold and silver shone from the mysterious substance of which
it was composed, and curious iridescent rays flashed suddenly across
their eyes as if part of it had become transparent. “The sun’s flames
have had power here,” remarked Dimitrius. “Almost they have pierced the
metal.”

Answering to pressure in the usual manner, the portal opened and
closed behind them as they entered. For a moment it was impossible
to see anything, owing to the overwhelming brilliancy of the light
which filled every part of the domed space--a light streaked here and
there with gold and deep rose-colour. The enormous Wheel was revolving
slowly--and beneath its rim, the canopied white stretcher was suspended
over the dark water below, as it had been left four days previously.
The prisoned victim had not stirred. For two or three minutes Dimitrius
stood looking eagerly, his eyes peering through the waves of light that
played upon his sense of vision almost as drowningly as the waves of
the sea might have played upon his power of breathing. Vasho, shaken to
pieces by his uncontrollable inward terrors, had fallen on his knees
and hidden his face in his hands. Dimitrius roused him from this abject
attitude.

“Get up, Vasho! Don’t play the fool!” he said, sternly. “What ails
you? Are you afraid? Look before you, man!--there is no change in
the outline of that figure--it is merely in a condition of suspended
animation. If she were dead--understand me!--_she would not be there at
all_! The stretcher would be empty! Come,--I want your help with these
pulleys.”

Vasho, striving to steady his trembling limbs, went to his imperious
master’s assistance as the pulleys were unlocked and released.

“Now, gently!” said Dimitrius. “Let the ropes go easy--and pull
evenly!”

They worked together, and gradually--with a smooth, swaying, noiseless
movement,--the canopied couch with its motionless occupant was swung
away from the Wheel across the water and laid at their feet. The canopy
itself sparkled all over as with millions of small diamonds,--and as
they raised and turned it back, curled in their hands and twisted like
a live thing. A still brighter luminance shone from end to end of the
closely bound and swathed figure beneath it,--a figure rigid as stone,
yet though so rigid, uncannily expressive of hidden life. Dimitrius
knelt down beside it and began to unfasten the close wrappings in
which it was so fast imprisoned, from the feet upwards, signing to
Vasho to assist him. Each one of the glistening white silken bands was
hot to the touch, and as it was unwound, cast out little sparks and
pellets of fire. The widest of these was folded over and over across
the breast, binding in the arms and hands, and as this was undone, the
faintest stir of the body was perceptible. At last Dimitrius uncovered
the face and head--and then--both he and Vasho sprang up and started
back, amazed and awestruck. Never a lovelier thing could be found on
earth than the creature which lay so passively before them,--a young
girl of beauty so exquisite that it hardly seemed human. The goddess of
a poet’s dream might be so imagined, but never a mere thing of flesh
and blood. And as they stood, staring at the marvel, the alabaster
whiteness of the flesh began to soften and flush with roseate hues,--a
faint sigh parted the reddening lips, the small, childlike hands,
hitherto lying limp on either side, were raised as though searching for
something in the air,--and then, slowly, easefully, and with no start
of surprise or fear, Diana awoke from her long trance and stretched
herself lazily, smiled, sat up for a moment, her hair falling about
her in an amber shower, and finally stepped from her couch and stood
erect, a vision of such ethereal fairness and youthful queenliness that
all unconscious of his own action, Dimitrius sank on his knees in a
transport of admiration, whispering:

“My triumph! My work! My wonder of the world!”

She, meanwhile, with the questioning air of one whose surroundings are
utterly unfamiliar, surveyed him in his kneeling attitude as though he
were a stranger. Drawing herself up and pushing back the wealth of hair
that fell about her, she spoke in the exquisitely musical voice that
was all her own, though it seemed to have gained a richer sweetness.

“Why do you kneel?” she asked. “Are you my servant?”

For one flashing second he was tempted to answer:

“Your master!”

But there was something in the stateliness of her attitude and the
dignity of her bearing that checked this bold utterance on his lips,
and he replied:

“Your slave!--if so you will it!”

A smile of vague surprise crossed her features.

“Remind me how I came here,” she said. “There is something I cannot
recall. I have been so much in the light and this place is very dark.
You are a friend, I suppose--are you not?”

A chilly touch of dread overcame him. His experiment had failed, if
despite its perfection of physical result, the brain organisation was
injured or destroyed. She talked at random, and with a lost air, as if
she had no recollection of any previous happenings.

“Surely I am your friend!” he said, rising from his knees and
approaching her more nearly. “You remember me?--Féodor Dimitrius?”

She passed one hand across her brow.

“Dimitrius?--Féodor Dimitrius?” she repeated,--then suddenly she
laughed,--a clear bright laugh like that of a happy child--“Of course!
I know you now--and I know my self. I am Diana May,--Diana May who
was the poor unloved old spinster with wrinkles round her eyes and
‘feelings’ in her stupidly warm heart!--but _she_ is dead! _I_ live!”

She lifted her arms, the silver sheen of her mysterious gleaming
garment falling back like unfurled wings.

“I live!” she repeated. “I am the young Diana!--the old Diana is dead!”

Her arms dropped to her sides again, and she turned to Dimitrius with a
bewitching smile.

“And you love me!” she said. “You love me as all men must love
me!--even _he_ loves me!” and she pointed playfully to Vasho, cowering
in fear as far back in a shadowy corner as he could, out of the arrowy
glances of her lovely eyes,--then, laughing softly again, she gathered
her robe about her with a queenly air. “Come, Dr. Féodor Dimitrius! Let
us go! I see by the way you look at me that you think your experiment
has been too much for my brain, but you are mistaken. I am quite clear
in memory and consciousness. You are the scientist who advertised for
‘a woman of mature years,’--I am Diana May who was ‘mature’ enough to
answer you, and came from London to Geneva on the chance of suiting
you,--I have submitted to all your commands, and here I am!--a success
for you, I suppose, but a still greater success for myself! I do not
know what has happened since I came into this laboratory a while
ago--nor am I at all curious,--was that my coffin!”

She indicated the stretcher with its white canopy from which she had
arisen. He was about to answer her, when she stopped him.

“No, tell me nothing! Say it is my chrysalis, from which I have broken
out--a butterfly!” She smiled--“Look at poor Vasho! How frightened he
seems! Let us leave this place,--surely we have had enough of it? Come,
Dr. Dimitrius!--it’s all over! You have done with me and I with you.
Take me to my rooms!”

Her air and tone of command were not to be gainsaid. Amazed and angry
at his own sudden sense of inferiority and inefficiency, Dimitrius
signed to the trembling Vasho to open the door of the laboratory,
and held out his hand to Diana to guide her. She looked at him
questioningly.

“Must I?” she asked. “You are quite enough in love with me
already!--but if you take my hand----!”

Her eyes, brilliant and provocative, flashed disdainfully into his. He
strove to sustain his composure.

“You are talking very foolishly,” he said, with studied harshness. “If
you wish to convince me that you are the same Diana May who has shown
such resolute courage and modesty, and--and--such obedience to my will,
you must express yourself more reasonably.”

Her light laugh rippled out again.

“Oh, but I am _not_ the same Diana May!” she answered. “You have
altered all that. I was old, and a woman,--now I am young, and a
goddess!”

He started back, amazed at her voice and attitude.

“A goddess--a goddess!” she repeated, triumphantly. “Young with a youth
that shall not change--alive with a life that shall not die! Out of
the fire and the air I have absorbed the essence of all beauty and
power!--what shall trouble me? Not the things of this little querulous
world!--not its peevish men and women!--I am above them all! Féodor
Dimitrius, your science has gathered strange fruit from the Tree of
Life, but remember!--the Flaming Sword turns _every_ way!”

He gazed at her in speechless wonderment. She had spoken with
extraordinary force and passion, and now stood confronting him as
an angel might have stood in the Garden of Paradise. Her beauty was
overwhelming--almost maddening in its irresistible attraction, and his
brain whirled like a mote in a ring of fire. He stretched out his hands
appealingly:

“Diana!” he half whispered--“Diana, you are mine!--my sole creation!”

“Not so,” she replied. “You blaspheme! Nothing is yours. You have used
the forces of Nature to make me what I am,--but I am Nature’s product,
and Nature is not always kind! Let us go!”

She moved towards the door. Vasho stood ready to open it, his eyes
cast down, and his limbs trembling,--as she approached she smiled
kindly at him, but the poor negro was too scared to look at her. He
swung the portal upward, and she passed through the opening. Dimitrius
followed, not venturing to offer his hand a second time. He merely gave
instructions to Vasho to set the laboratory in order and remove every
trace of his “experiment,”--then kept close beside the erect, slight,
graceful figure in the shining garment that glided along with unerring
steps through the corridor into the familiar hall, where for a moment,
Diana paused.

“Is your mother well?” she asked.

“Quite well.”

“I am glad. You will prepare her to see me to-morrow?”

“I will!”

She passed on, up the staircase, and went straight to her own rooms. It
was plain she had forgotten nothing, and that she had all her senses
about her. As Dimitrius threw open the door of her little _salon_ she
turned on the threshold and fully confronted him.

“Thank you!” she said. “I hope you are satisfied that your experiment
has succeeded?”

He was pale to the lips, and his eyes glowed with suppressed fire,--but
he answered calmly:

“I am more than satisfied if--if you are well!”

“I am very well,” she replied, smiling. “I shall never be ill. You
ought to know that if you believe in your own discovery. You ought to
know that I am no longer made of mortal clay, ‘subject to all the ills
that flesh is heir to.’ Your science has filled me with another and
more lasting form of life!”

He was silent, standing before her with head bent, like some disgraced
school-boy.

“Good-night!” she said, then, in a gentler tone--“I do not know how
long I have been the companion of your ‘Ordeal by Fire!’--I suppose I
ought to be hungry and thirsty, but I am not. To breathe has been to me
sufficient nourishment--yet for the sake of appearances you had better
let Vasho--poor frightened Vasho!--bring me food as usual. I shall be
ready for him in an hour.”

She motioned him away, and closed the door. As she disappeared, a light
seemed to vanish with her and the dark entresol grew even darker. He
went downstairs in a maze of bewilderment, dazzled by her beauty and
conscious of her utter indifference,--and stood for a moment at the
open door of the loggia, looking out at the still, dark loveliness of
the summer evening.

“And so it is finished!” he said to himself. “All over! A completed
triumph and marvel of science! But--what have I made of her? _She is
not a woman!_ Then--_what_ is she?”




CHAPTER XXI


While Dimitrius thus perplexed himself with a psychological question
for which he could find no satisfactory answer, Diana was happily free
from doubts and fears of any kind whatsoever. When she found herself
alone in her rooms she was conscious of a strange sense of sovereignty
and supremacy which, though it was in a manner new to her, yet did not
seem unnatural. She was not in the least conscious of having passed
four days, practically, in a state of suspended animation, no more,
perhaps, than is the Indian fakir who suffers himself to be buried in
the earth for a sufficient time to allow the corn to grow over him. She
looked about her, recognising certain familiar objects which were her
own, and others which belonged to the Dimitrius household,--she touched
the piano lightly as she passed it,--glanced through the open window
at the dusky, starlit skies, and then went into her bedroom, where,
turning on the electric burner, she confronted herself in the mirror
with a smile. Beauty smiled back at her in every line and curve, in
every movement; and she criticised her own appearance as she might have
criticised a picture, admiring the sheeny softness and sparkle of the
mysterious garment in which she was arrayed. But after a few moments of
this quiet self-contemplation, she recollected more mundane things, and
going to the wardrobe, took out the rose-pink wrap Sophy Lansing had
given her.

“I wonder,” she said, half laughing, “what Sophy would say to me now!
But, after all, what a far-away person Sophy seems!”

Standing before the mirror she deliberately let the shining “robe of
ordeal” slip from her body to the floor. Nude as a pearl, she remained
for a moment, gazing, as she knew, at the loveliest model of feminine
perfection ever seen since the sculptor of the Venus de Medici wrought
his marble divinity. Yet she was not surprised or elated; no touch of
vanity or self-complacency moved her. The astonishing part of the whole
matter was that it seemed quite natural to her to be thus beautiful;
beauty had become part of her existence, like the simple act of
breathing, and called for no special personal notice. She slipped on
a few garments, covering all with her rose-silk wrapper, and twisted
up her hair. And so she was clothed again as Diana May,--but what a
different Diana May! She heard Vasho moving in the sitting-room, and
looking, saw that he was setting out a dainty little table with game
and fruit and wine. He caught sight of her fair face watching him from
the half-open door which divided bedroom from sitting-room, and paused,
abashed--then made a sort of Eastern salutation, full of the most
abject humility.

“Poor Vasho!” she said, advancing. “How strange that you should be so
afraid of me! What do you take me for? You must not be afraid!”

No goddess, suddenly descending from the skies to earth, could have
looked more royally beneficent than she, and Vasho made rapid signs of
entire devotion to her service.

“No,” she said--“You are your master’s man. He will need your
help--when I am gone!”

The negro’s countenance expressed a sudden dismay--and she laughed.

“Yes--when I am gone!” she repeated, “and that will be very soon! I am
made for all the world now!”

His eyes rolled despairingly,--he made eloquent and beseeching signs of
appeal.

“You will be sorry?” she said. “Yes--I daresay you will! Now go
along,--they want you downstairs. It is foolish to be sorry for
anything.”

She smiled at him as he backed from her presence, looking utterly
miserable, and disappeared. Left alone, she touched a glass of wine
with her lips, but quickly set it down.

“What a curious taste!” she said. “I used to like it,--I don’t like it
at all now. I’m not thirsty and I’m not hungry. I want nothing. It’s
enough for me to breathe!”

She moved slowly up and down with an exquisite floating grace, a
perfect vision of imperial beauty, her rose-red “rest gown” with its
white fur lining trailing about her; and presently, sitting down by
the open window, she inhaled the warm summer air, and after a while
watched the moon rise through a foam of white cloud, which seemed to
have sprayed itself sheer down from the Alpine snows. Her thoughts were
clear; her consciousness particularly active,--and, with a kind of new
self-possession and intellectuality, she took herself, as it were,
mentally to pieces, and examined each section of herself as under a
psychological microscope.

“Let me be quite sure of my own identity,” she said, half aloud. “I am
Diana May--and yet I am not Diana May! I have lost the worn old shell
of my former personality, and I have found another personality which
is not my own, and yet somehow is the real Me!--the Me for whom I have
been searching and crying ever since I could search and cry!--the Me
I have dreamed of as rising in the shape of a Soul from my dead body!
I am clothed with a life vesture made of strange and imperishable
stuff,--I cannot begin to describe or understand it, except as an
organisation free from all pain and grossness--and what is more
positive still--free from all feeling!”

She paused here, interested in the puzzle of her thoughts. Raising her
eyes, she looked out at the divine beauty of the night.

“Yes,” she went on musing--“That is the strangest part of it!--I have
_no_ feeling. This is the work of science--therefore my condition
will be within reach of all who care to accept it. I look out at the
garden,--the moonlight,--but not as I used to look. _They_ have no
feeling, and seem just a natural part of myself. They do not move me to
any more sensation than the recognition that they live as I do, _with_
me and _for_ me. If I can get hold of myself at all surely, I think my
chief consciousness is that of power,--power, with no regard for its
exercise or result.”

She waited again, disentangling her mind from all clinging or vague
recollections.

“This man, Féodor Dimitrius, interested me at one time,” she said.
“His utter selfishness and callous absorption in his own studies moved
me almost to pain. Now he does not interest me at all. His mother is
kind,--very simple--very stupid and well-meaning--but I could not stay
with her for long. Who else must I remember?”

Suddenly she laughed.

“Pa and Ma!” she exclaimed--“I must not forget _them_! Those dear,
respectable parents of mine, who only cared for me as long as I was
an interesting object to _themselves_, and found me ‘in the way’
when their interest ceased! Flighty Pa! Wouldn’t he just love to be
rejuvenated and turned out as a sort of new Faustus, amorous and
reckless of everybody’s feelings--but his own! Oh, yes, I mustn’t
forget Pa! I’m young enough to wear white now!--I’ll go and see him as
soon as I get back to England--before Ma’s best mourning gown grows
rusty!” She laughed again, the most enchanting dimples lightening her
face as mirth radiated from her lips and eyes--then all at once she
became serious, almost stern, and stood up as though lifted erect by
some thought which impelled action. One hand clenched involuntarily.

“Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve!” she said, in slow tones
of emphatic scorn--“Especially the Honourable! I must not forget
_him_!--or his fat wife!--or his appallingly hideous and stupid
children! I must look at them all!--and not only must I look at
_them_--they must look at _me_!”

Her hand relaxed,--her eyes, limpid and lustrous, turned again towards
the open window and moonlit summer night.

“Yet--is vengeance worth while?” she mused--“Vengeance on a mote--a
worm--a low soul such as that of the man I once almost worshipped?
Yes!--the gods know it _is_ worth while to punish a liar and traitor!
When the world becomes unclean and full of falsehood a great war is
sent to purge its foulness,--when a man destroys a life’s happiness it
is just that his own happiness should also be destroyed.”

She had come to the conclusion of her meditations, and seeing the hour
was ten o’clock, she opened her door and put the untouched little
supper-table with all its delicacies outside in the entresol to be
cleared away; then locking herself in for the night, prepared to go
to bed. It was now that a sudden thrill of doubt quivered through her
beautiful “new” organisation,--the nervous idea that perhaps she would
not be able to pray! She took herself severely to task for this thought.

“All things are of God!” she said, aloud--“Whatever science has made of
me I can be nothing without His will. To Him belong the sun and air,
the light and fire!--to Him also _I_ belong, and to Him I may render
thanks without fear.”

She knelt down and uttered the familiar “Our Father” in slow, soft
tones of humility and devotion. To anyone who could have watched her
praying thus, she would have seemed

    “A splendid angel newly drest
    Save wings, for heaven!”

And when she laid her head on her pillow she fell asleep as sweetly as
a young child, her breathing as light, her dreamless unconsciousness as
perfect.

The morning found her refreshed by her slumber, stronger and more
self-possessed than before; and when clad in her ordinary little white
batiste gown she looked, as indeed she was bodily, if not mentally, a
mere slip of a girl,--a lovely girl, slender as a rod and fair as a
lily, radiating in every expression and movement with an altogether
extraordinary beauty. After the breakfast hour came Madame Dimitrius,
eager, curious, affectionate;--but at first sight of her, stood as
though rooted to the floor, and began to tremble so violently that
Diana put an arm about her to save her from falling. But, with a white,
scared face and repelling hand, the old woman pushed her aside.

“Do not touch me, please!” she said, in feeble, quavering tones--“I--I
did not expect this! I was prepared for much--but not this!--this
is devil’s work! Oh, my son, my son! He is possessed by the powers
of evil!--may God deliver him! No, no!”--this, as Diana, with her
beautiful smile of uplifted sweetness and tolerance, strove to
speak--“Nothing you can say will alter it! It is impossible that such a
thing could be done without rebellion against the laws of God! You--you
are not Diana May--you are some other creature, not made of flesh and
blood!”

Diana heard her with a gentle patience.

“Very possibly you are right,” she said, quietly. “But whatever I am
made of must be some of God’s own material, since there is nothing
existent without Him! Why, even if there is a devil, the devil himself
cannot exist apart from God!”

Madame Dimitrius uttered a pained cry, and then began to sob
hysterically.

“Oh, do not speak to me, do not speak to me!” she wailed. “My son,
my son! My Féodor! His soul is the prey of some evil spirit--and
it seems to me as if you are that spirit’s form and voice! You are
beautiful--but not with merely a woman’s beauty!--his science has
called some strange power to him--_you_ are that power!--you will be
his doom!” She wrung her hands nervously, and moaning, “Let me go!--let
me go!” turned to leave the room.

Diana stood apart, making no effort to detain her. A look of wondering
compassion filled her lovely eyes.

“Poor woman!” she breathed, softly. “Poor weak, worn soul!”

Then suddenly she spoke aloud in clear, sweet, decisive tones.

“Dear Madame,” she said--“you distress yourself without cause! You
need not be afraid of me,--I will do you no harm! As for your son,
his fate is in his own hands; he assumes to be master of it. I shall
not interfere with him or with you,--for now I shall leave you both
for ever! I have submitted myself to his orders,--I have been his
paid ‘subject,’ and he cannot complain of any want of obedience on my
part,--his experiment has succeeded. Nothing therefore now remains for
me to do here, and he has no further need of me. I promise you I will
go as quickly as I can!--and if, as you say, I am not human, why so
much the worse for humanity!”

She smiled, and her attitude and expression were royally triumphant.
Madame Dimitrius had reached the door of the apartment, and with her
hand leaning against it turned back to look at her in evident terror.
Then she essayed to speak again.

“I am sorry,” she faltered--“if I seem strange and harsh--but--but you
are not Diana May--not the woman I knew! She had grown younger and
prettier under my son’s treatment--but you!--you are a mere girl!--and
I feel--I know you are not, you cannot be human!”

A light of something like scorn flashed from Diana’s eyes.

“Is humanity so valuable!” she asked.

But this question was more than enough for Madame Dimitrius. With a
shuddering exclamation of something like utter despair, she hurriedly
opened the door, and stumbled blindly out into the corridor, there to
be caught in the arms of her son, who was coming to Diana’s rooms.

“Why, mother!” he ejaculated--“what is this?”

Diana stood at her half-open door, looking at them both like a young
angel at the gate of paradise.

“Your mother is frightened of me,” she explained gently. “She says I am
not human. I daresay that’s very likely! But do try and comfort her,
and tell her that I have no evil intentions towards her or you. And
that I am going away as soon as you will allow me to do so.”

His brows contracted.

“Mother,” he said reproachfully, “is this how you keep your promise
to me? I gave you my confidence--you see the full success of my great
experiment--and yet you reward me thus?”

She clung to him desperately.

“Féodor!--Féodor!” she cried--“My son,--my only child! You shall not
blame me,--me, your mother! I love you, Féodor!--and love teaches many
things! Oh, my son!--you have drawn from your science something that is
not of this world!--something that has no feeling--no emotion!--this
creature of your making is not Diana!”

As she spoke her face grew livid,--she beat the air with her feeble
old hands, as though she fought some invisible foe, and fell in a dead
faint.

Quickly Dimitrius lifted her in his arms, and laid her on the sofa in
Diana’s sitting-room. Diana came to his aid, and deftly and tenderly
bathed her forehead and hands with cool water. When she showed signs of
returning consciousness Diana said whisperingly:

“I will go now! She must not be frightened again--she must not see me
when she wakes. You understand? Poor, dear old lady! She imagines I am
not human, and she has told me I shall be your doom!” She smiled. “Do
you think I shall?”

Her loveliness shone upon him like a light too brilliant to endure.
His heart beat furiously, but he would not look at her,--he bent
his head over his mother’s passive figure, busying himself with
restoratives,--and answered nothing.

She waited a minute,--then added--“You will arrange for my leaving here
as soon as possible? After what she has said, it will be best for your
mother that I should go at once.”

Then, and then only, he lifted his dark eyes,--they were sad and
strained.

“I will arrange everything,” he said. “No doubt the sooner we part, the
better!”

She smiled again,--then moved swiftly away into her bedroom and locked
the door. Slowly Madame Dimitrius recovered and looked around her with
an alarmed expression.

“She has gone?”

“Yes,” her son replied, with a bitterness he could not restrain. “She
has gone!--and she will go! You have driven away the loveliest thing
ever seen on earth! _my_ creation! Through you she will leave me
altogether--and yet you say you love me!”

“I do! I do love you!” cried his mother, weeping. “Féodor, Féodor, I
love you as no other can or will! I love you, and by my love I claim
your soul! I claim it from the powers of evil!--I claim it for God!”




CHAPTER XXII


The swiftness and silence of Diana’s departure from the Château
Fragonard was of an almost uncanny nature. There were no affectionate
leave-takings,--and she made no attempt to see Madame Dimitrius, who,
thoroughly unnerved and ill, remained in her bedroom,--nor would
she permit of any escort to the station, or “seeing off” by way of
farewell. She simply left the house, having packed and labelled her own
luggage to be sent after her,--and walked quietly with Dr. Dimitrius,
through the lovely gardens all in their summer beauty, to the private
gate opening out to the high road, from whence it was an easy ten
minutes to the station. He was very silent, and his usual composure had
entirely deserted him.

“I cannot part with you like this,” he said, in low, nervous tones, as
she gave him her hand in “good-bye.” “As soon as my mother recovers
from this strange breakdown of hers, I shall follow you. I must see you
again----”

She smiled.

“Must you?”

“Of course I must! I am deeply grateful to you,--do not think I can
forget your patience--your courage----” He paused, deeply moved. “I
hate the idea of your travelling all alone to London!”

“Why?” she asked, in an amused tone--“I came all alone!”

“Yes--but it was different----”

“You mean I looked ‘mature,’ then?” she laughed. “Oh, well! Nobody will
interfere with a girl returning home from school in Geneva!”

A pained smile crossed his face.

“Yes!--you can play that part very well!” he admitted. “But you cannot
live alone without someone to look after you!”

She gave a light gesture of indifference.

“No? Well, I will get some dear old lady ‘in reduced circumstances’
to do that. There are so many of them--all with excellent references.
Someone about my own age would do,--for after all, I’m over forty!”

He uttered an exclamation of impatience.

“Why will you say that?”

“Because it’s true!” she replied. “According to this planet’s time.
But”--here her eyes flashed with a strange and almost unearthly
lustre--“there are other planets--other countings! And by these, I
am--well!--what I am!”

He looked at her in mingled doubt and wonder.

“Diana!” he said, entreatingly--“Will you not trust me?”

“In what way?” she asked, with sudden coldness--“What trust do you
seek?”

“Listen!” he went on eagerly--“My science has worked its will upon
you, with the most amazing success--but there is something beyond my
science--something which baffles me,--which I cannot fathom! It is in
you, yourself--you have learned what I have failed to learn,--you know
what I do not know!”

A smile suddenly irradiated her lovely face,--so might an angel smile
in giving a benediction.

“I am glad you realise that!” she said, quietly--“For it is true! But
what I have learned--what I know--I cannot explain to myself or impart
to others.”

He stood amazed,--not so much at her words as at her manner of uttering
them. It was the unapproachable, ethereal dignity of her attitude and
expression that awed and held him in check.

“You would not understand or believe it possible,” she went on, “even
if I tried to put into words what is truly a wordless existence, apart
from you altogether,--apart not only from you, but from all merely
human things----”

“Ah!” he interrupted quickly--“That is just the point. You say ‘merely’
human, as if you had passed beyond humanity!”

She looked at him steadily.

“Humanity thinks too much of itself,” she said, slowly. “Its
petty ambitions,--its miserable wars,--its greed of gain and love
of cruelty!--what is it worth without the higher soul! In this
universe--even in this planet, humanity is not all! There are other
forces--other forms--but--as I have said, I cannot explain myself, and
it is time to say good-bye. I am glad I have been of use in helping you
to succeed in what you sought to do; and now I suppose you will make
millions of money by your ability to re-establish life and youth. And
will that make you happy, I wonder?”

His face grew stern and impassive.

“I do not seek happiness,” he said--“Not for myself. I hope to make
happiness for others. Yet truly I doubt whether happiness is possible
in this world, except for children and fools.”

“And sorrow?” she queried.

“Sorrow waits on us hand and foot,” he replied--“There is no condition
exempt from it.”

“Except mine!” she said, smiling. “I am relieved of both sorrow and
joy--I never seem to have known either! I am as indifferent to both as
a sunbeam! Good-bye!”

He held her hand, and his dark eyes searched her lovely face as though
looking for a gleam of sympathy.

“Good-bye!” he rejoined--“But not for long! Remember that! Those whom
you knew in England will not recognise you now,--you will have many
difficulties, and you may need a friend’s counsel--I shall follow you
very soon!”

“Why should you?” she asked, lightly. His grasp on her hand tightened
unconsciously.

“Because I must!” he answered, passionately. “Don’t you see? You draw
me like a magnet!--and I cannot resist following my own exquisite
creation!”

She released her hand with a decided movement.

“You mistake!” she said--“I am not your creation. You, of yourself,
can create nothing. I am only a result of your science which you never
dreamed of!--which you could not foresee!--and which you will never
master! Good-bye!”

She left him at once with this word, despite his last entreating call,
“Diana!” and passing through the private gate to the high road, so
disappeared. Like a man in a trance, he stood watching till the last
glimpse of her dress had vanished--then, with a mist of something like
tears in his eyes, he realised that a sudden blank loneliness had
fallen upon him like a cloud.

“Something I shall never master!” he repeated, as he went slowly
homeward. “If woman I shall!--but if not----”

And here he checked his thoughts, not daring to pursue them further.

So they parted,--he more bewildered and troubled by the “success” of
his experiment than satisfied,--while she, quite unconscious of any
particular regret or emotion, started on her journey to England. Never
had she received so much attention, and the eagerness displayed by
every man she met to wait upon her and assist her in some way or other,
amused her while it aroused a certain scorn.

“It is only looks that move them!” she said to herself. “The same old
tale!--Youth and beauty!--and never a care whether I am a good or an
evil thing! And yet one is asked to ‘respect’ men!”

She went on her way without trouble. The _chef de gare_ at Geneva
was full of gentle commiseration at the idea of so young and lovely
a creature travelling alone, and placed her tenderly, as though she
were a hot-house lily to be carried “with care,” in a first-class
compartment of “Dames Seules” where a couple of elderly ladies received
her graciously, with motherly smiles, and remarked that she was “very
young to travel alone.” She deprecated their attention with becoming
grace--but said very little. She looked at their wrinkles and baggy
throats, and wondered, whether, if they knew of Dr. Dimitrius and went
to him, he could ever make them young and beautiful again? It seemed
impossible,--they were too far gone! They were travelling to London,
however; and she cheerfully accepted their kindly proposal that she
should make the journey in their company. On the way through Paris she
wrote a brief letter to Sophy Lansing, saying that she would call and
see her as soon after arrival in London as possible, and adding as a
postscript: “I have changed very much in my appearance, but I hope you
will still know me as your friend, Diana.”

The two ladies with whom chance or fate had thrown her in company,
turned out to be of the “old” English aristocracy, and were very
simple, gently-mannered women who had for many years been intimate
friends. They were both widows; their children were grown up and
married, and many reverses of fortune, with loss of kindred, had
but drawn them more closely together. Every year they took little
inexpensive holidays abroad, and they were returning home now after
one of these spent at Aix-les-Bains. They were fascinated by the
extraordinary beauty of the girl they had volunteered to chaperon, and,
privately to one another, thought and said she ought to wear a veil.
For no man saw her without seeming suddenly “smitten all of a heap,”
as the saying is,--and, after one or two embarrassing experiences at
various stations _en route_, where certain of these “smitten” had not
scrupled to walk up and down the platform outside their compartment
just to look at the fair creature within, one of the worthy dames
suggested, albeit timidly, that perhaps--only perhaps!--a veil might
be advisable?--as they were soon going across the sea--and the rough
salt wind and spray were so bad for the complexion! Diana smiled. She
understood. And for the rest of the journey she tied up her beautiful
head and face in American fashion with an uncompromising dark blue
motor veil through which hardly the tip of her nose could be seen.

They crossed the Channel at night, and breakfasted together at Dover.
Once in the train bound for London, Diana’s companions sought tactfully
to find out who she was. Something quite indefinable and unusual about
her gave them both a touch of “nerves.” She seemed removed and aloof
from life’s ordinary things, though her manner was perfectly simple and
natural. She gave her name quite frankly and added that she was quite
alone in the world.

“I have one friend,--Miss Sophy Lansing,” she said--“You may have heard
of her. She is a leading Suffragette and a very clever writer. I am
going to her now.”

The ladies glanced at each other and smiled.

“Yes,--we have heard of her,” said one. “But I hope she will not make
_you_ a Suffragette! Life has much better fortune in store for you than
that!”

“You think so?”--and Diana shrugged her graceful shoulders
indifferently--“Anyway, I am not interested in political matters at
all. They are always small and quarrelsome,--like the buzzing of midges
on a warm day!”

One of her companions now took out her card-case.

“Do come and see me in town!” she said kindly--“I should be very glad
if you would. I live a very quiet hum-drum life and seldom see any
young people.”

Diana smiled as she accepted the card.

“Thank you so much!” she murmured,--seeing at a glance the name and
address “Lady Elswood, Chester Square,” and thinking how easy it was
for youth and beauty to find friends--“I will certainly come.”

“And don’t forget _me_!” said the other lady--“I live just round the
corner,--only a few steps from Lady Elswood’s house, so you can come
and see me also.”

Diana expressed her acknowledgment by a look, reading on the second
card now proffered: “Mrs. Gervase,” and the address indicated.

“I will!” she said, and yet in her own mind she felt that these two
good-natured women were the merest shadows to her consciousness, and
that she had not the remotest idea of going to visit them at any time.

London reached, they parted,--and Diana, taking a taxi-cab and
claiming her modest luggage from the Custom-house officials, was
driven straight to Sophy Lansing’s flat in Mayfair, which she had left
under such different circumstances close on a year ago. Miss Lansing
was in, said the servant who opened the door,--and Diana had hardly
waited in the drawing-room five minutes, when there was a rush of
garments and quick feet and Sophy herself appeared. But at the door she
stopped--transfixed.

“There’s some mistake,” she said at once--“You must have come to the
wrong flat. I expected a friend,--Miss May. You are not Miss May.”

Diana held out both hands.

“Sophy, don’t you know me?” she said, smiling--“_Won’t_ you know me?
Surely you recognise my voice? I told you in my letter from Paris that
I was changed--I thought you would understand----”

But Sophy stood mute and bewildered, her back against the door by
which she had just entered. For half a minute she felt she knew the
sweet thrill of the voice that was Diana’s special gift,--but when
she looked at the exquisite girlish beauty of the--the “person” who
had intruded upon her, as she thought, on false pretences, she was
unreasonably annoyed, her annoyance arising, though she would never
have admitted it, from a helpless consciousness of her own inferiority
in attractiveness.

“Nonsense!” she said, sharply. “Whoever you are, you can’t take _me_
in! _My_ friend is a middle-aged woman,--older than I am--you are a
mere girl! Do you think I don’t know the difference? Please leave my
house!”

At these words, a delightful peal of lilting laughter broke from
Diana’s lips. Sophy stared, indignant and speechless, while Diana
slipped off a watch bracelet from her slender wrist.

“Very well, dear!” she said. “If you don’t want to know me, you shan’t!
Here is the little watch you lent me when I went away last year--after
I was drowned, you remember?--in place of my own which I’m glad to see
you are wearing. You know I took up a position with the Dr. Féodor
Dimitrius whose advertisement you sent me,--he wanted me to help him
in a scientific experiment. Well!--I did,--and I am the result of his
work. I see you don’t believe me, so I’ll go. I told the taxi-man to
wait. I’m so sorry you won’t have me!”

Sophy Lansing listened amazed and utterly incredulous. That voice--that
sweet laughter--they had a familiar ring; but the youthful features,
the exquisite complexion of clear cream and rose--these were no part of
the Diana she had known, and she shook her head obstinately.

“You may have met my friend in Geneva,” she said, stiffly. “But how you
got my watch from her, I am at a loss to imagine--unless she lent it to
you to travel with. You look to me like a run-away schoolgirl playing a
practical joke. But whoever you are, you are not Diana May.”

Smilingly Diana laid the watch she had taken off down on the table.

“Very well, I will leave this here,” she said. “It is yours,--and
when I am gone it will help you to remember and think over all the
circumstances. You had my letter from Paris?”

“I had _a_ letter,” replied Sophy, coldly, “from my friend, Miss May.”

Diana laughed again.

“I wrote it,” she said. “How droll it seems that you should know
my handwriting and not know me! And I thought you would be so
pleased!--you, who said I was going to be ‘a wonderful creature,’ and
that ‘Cinderella should go to the Prince’s Ball!’ And now you won’t
recognise me!--it’s just as if you were ‘jealous because I’m pretty!’
I may as well explain before I go, that Dr. Dimitrius, for whom I’ve
been working all the year, is one of those scientific ‘cranks’ who
think they can restore lost youth, create beauty and prolong life--like
Faust, you know! He wanted a subject to practise upon,--and as I was no
earthly use to anyone, he took _me_! And he’s turned me out as you see
me--all new and fresh as the morning! And I believe I shall last a long
while!”

But here Sophy Lansing uttered a half suppressed scream.

“Go away!” she gasped--“You--you are a mad girl! You’ve escaped from
some asylum!--I’m sure you have!”

With swift dignity Diana drew herself up and gazed full and pitifully
at her quondam friend.

“Poor Sophy!” she said--“I’m sorry for you! I thought you had more
character--more self-control! I am not mad--I am far saner than you
are. I have told you the truth--and one more thing I can tell you--that
I have lost all power to be hurt or offended or disappointed, so you
need not think your failure to believe me or your loss of friendship
causes me the least pain! I have gone beyond all that. You are keeping
the door closed,--will you let me pass?”

Really frightened and trembling violently, Sophy Lansing moved
cautiously to one side, and as cautiously opened the door. Her scared
eyes followed every movement of the graceful, aerial girl-figure which
professed to be Diana’s, and she shrank away from the brilliant glance
of the heavenly dark blue eyes that rested upon her with such almost
angelic compassion. She heard a softly breathed “Good-bye!” and a
gentle sweep of garments, then--a pause, and Diana was gone. She rushed
to the window. Yes,--there was the taxi waiting,--another minute, and
she saw her girl visitor enter it. The vehicle soon disappeared, its
noisy grind and whir being rapidly lost in the roar of the general
traffic.

“It was not--it could not have been Diana!” almost sobbed Sophy to
herself. “I felt--oh, yes!--I felt it was something not quite human!”

Then, turning to the table where the watch-bracelet had been left, she
took it up. It was indubitably her bracelet, with her monogram in small
rubies and diamonds on the back of the watch. She had certainly lent
it--almost given it--to Diana, and she herself was wearing Diana’s own
watch which Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May had given her as “a souvenir of
our darling child!” It was all like a wild dream!--where had this girl
come from?

“She is frightfully beautiful!” exclaimed Sophy at last, in an outburst
of excited feeling--“Simply unearthly! Even if she _were_ Diana, I
could not have her here!--with _me_!--never--never! She would make
me look so old! So plain--so unattractive! But of course she is not
Diana!--no ‘beauty doctor’ could make a woman over forty look like a
girl of eighteen or less! She must be an adventuress of some sort! She
couldn’t be so beautiful unless she were. But she won’t palm herself
off on _me_! My poor old Diana! I wonder what has become of her!”

Meanwhile “poor old Diana,” somewhat perplexed by the failure of her
friend to accept her changed appearance on trust, was thinking out
the ways and means of her new life. She had plenty of money, for
Dimitrius had placed two thousand pounds to her credit in a London
bank,--a sum which she had no hesitation in accepting, as the price
of her life, risked in his service. The thought now struck her that
she would go to this bank, draw a small cheque, and explain that she
had arrived alone in London, and wished to be recommended to some
good hotel. This proved to be an excellent idea. The manager of the
bank received her in his private office, and, fairly dazzled by her
beauty, placed his friendliest services at her disposal, informing her
that he was a personal friend of Dimitrius, and that he held him in
the highest esteem and honour. To prove his sincerity he personally
escorted her to a quiet private hotel of the highest respectability,
chiefly patronised by “county” ladies “above suspicion.” Here, on his
recommendation, she took a small suite overlooking the Park. Becoming
more and more interested in her youth, loveliness and loneliness,
he listened sympathetically while she mentioned her wish to find
some middle-aged lady of good family who would reside with her as a
chaperone and companion for a suitable annual salary,--and he promised
to exert himself in active search for a person of quality who would be
fitted for the post. He was a good-looking man, and though married, was
susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, and it was with undisguised
reluctance that he at last took his leave of the most beautiful
creature he had ever seen, with many expressions of courtesy, and
commiserating her enforced temporary solitude.

“I wish I could stay with you!” he said, regardless of convention.

“I’m sure you do!” answered Diana, sweetly. “Thank you so much! You
have been most kind!”

A look from the lovely eyes accompanied these simple words which shot
like a quiver of lightning through the nerves of the usually curt,
self-possessed business man, and caused him to stammer confusedly and
move awkwardly as at last he left the room. When he was gone Diana
laughed.

“They are all alike!” she said--“All worshippers of outward show!
Suppose that good man knew I was over forty? Why, he wouldn’t look at
me!”

The manageress of the hotel just then entered, bringing the book in
which all hotel visitors registered their names. She was quite a
stately person, attired in black silk, and addressed Diana with a
motherly air, having been told by the bank manager, for whom she had
a great respect, to have good care of her. Diana wrote her name in a
dashing, free hand, putting herself down as a British subject, and
naming Geneva as her last place of residence, when her attention was
arrested by a name three or four lines above that on which she was
writing--and she paused, pen in hand.

“Are those people staying here?” she asked.

The manageress looked where she pointed.

“Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, Mrs. Cleeve, two daughters and
maid,” she said. “Yes--they are here,--they always come here during a
part of the season.”

Diana finished writing her own inscription and laid down the pen. She
was smiling, and her eyes were so densely blue and brilliant that the
manageress was fairly startled.

“I will dine in my room this evening,” she said. “I have had a long
journey, and am rather tired. To-morrow, perhaps, I’ll come down to
dinner----”

“Don’t put yourself out at all about that,” said the manageress,
kindly. “It’s not comfortable for a girl to dine in a room full of
strangers--or perhaps you know Mrs. Cleeve and could sit at her
table----?”

“No--I do _not_ know Mrs. Cleeve,” said Diana, decidedly--“I’ve seen
her at a charity bazaar and I believe she’s very stout--but I claim no
acquaintance.”

“She _is_ stout,” agreed the manageress with a smile, as she left the
room.

Diana stood still, absorbed in thought. Her features were aglow
with some internal luminance,--her whole form was instinct with a
mysteriously radiant vitality.

“So Destiny plays my game!” she said, half aloud. “On the very first
day of my return to the scene of my poor earthly sorrows I lose an old
friend and find an old lover!”




CHAPTER XXIII


Destiny having apparently taken sides with Diana in her new existence,
she lost no time in availing herself of the varied and curious
entertainment thrown in her way. The first thing she did on the next
day but one of her arrival in London was to attempt a visit to her own
former old home in Richmond, in order to see her “bereaved” parents. A
private automobile from the hotel was supplied for her use at the hour
she named in the afternoon,--an hour when she knew by old experience
her mother would be dozing on the sofa after lunch, and her father
would be in a semi-somnolent condition over the day’s newspaper. As she
passed through the hotel lounge on her way to enter the car, she came
face to face with her quondam lover, Captain the Honourable Reginald
Cleeve, a heavily-built, fairly good-looking man of about fifty or
more. She wondered, as she saw him, what had become of the once rather
refined contour of the features she had formerly admired, and why the
eyes that had “looked love into eyes that spake again” were now so
small and peepy, and half hidden under lids that were red and puffy.
Dressed with a quiet elegance and simplicity, she moved slowly towards
him,--he was lighting a cigar and preparing to go out, but as he caught
sudden sight of her he dropped the lit match with a “By Jove!” stamped
its flame out under his foot, and hastening to the hotel door of exit,
opened it, and, lifting his hat, murmured “Allow me!” with a glance of
undisguised admiration. She bowed slightly and smiled her thanks--her
smile was most enchanting, creating as it were a dazzle of light in
the eyes of those who beheld it,--then she passed out into the street,
where the hotel porter assisted her into her automobile, and watched
her being driven away till she had disappeared. Captain Cleeve strolled
up to the hotel office where the manageress sat at her desk,--he was on
friendly terms with her, and could ask any question he liked.

“Is that young lady staying here?” he now inquired--“The one who has
just gone out?”

“Yes. She came two days ago from abroad. A very beautiful girl, is she
not?”

Cleeve nodded.

“Rather! I never saw anything like her. Do you know who she is?”

“Her name is May,--Miss Diana May,” replied the manageress. “She was
recommended here by,--dear me! Is there anything the matter?”

For Captain the Honourable had gone suddenly white, and as suddenly
become violently red in the face, while he gripped the edge of the
counter against which he leaned as though afraid of falling.

“No--no!” he answered, impatiently--“It’s nothing! Are you sure that’s
her name?--Diana May?”

“Quite sure! The manager of our bank brought her here, explaining that
she had just arrived from Switzerland, where she has been educated--I
think--in the house of one of his own friends who lives in Geneva--and
that she was for the present alone in London. He is looking out for a
lady chaperone and companion for her,--she has plenty of money.”

Cleeve pulled at his moustache nervously--then gave a forced laugh.

“Curious!” he ejaculated--“I used to know a girl named Diana May years
ago--before--before I was married. Not like this girl--no!--though she
was pretty. I wonder if she’s any relation? I must ask her.”

“She seemed to know _your_ name when she saw it in our register,” said
the manageress, “for she inquired if you and your family were staying
here. I said ‘Yes’--and ‘did she know Mrs. Cleeve?’--but she replied
that she did not.”

Captain the Honourable had become absent-minded, and murmured “Oh!” and
“Ah!” as if he were not paying very much attention. He strolled away
and out into the street, with the name “Diana May” ringing in his ears,
and the vision of that exquisitely lovely girl before his eyes. A dull
spark of resentment sprang up in him that he should be a married man
with a wife too stout to tie her own shoes, and the father of children
too plain-featured and ungraceful to be looked at a second time.

“We are fools to marry at all!” he inwardly soliloquized. “At
fifty-five a man may still be a lover--and lover of a girl, too--when
long before that age a woman is done for!”

Meanwhile Diana was having adventures of a sufficiently amusing kind,
had she retained the capability of being amused by anything “merely”
human. She arrived at her former old home a little on the outskirts of
Richmond, and bade the driver of her automobile wait at the carriage
gate, preferring to walk up the short distance of the drive to the
house. How familiar and yet unfamiliar that wide sweep of neatly-rolled
gravel was! banked up on each side with rhododendrons, through which
came occasional glimpses of smooth green lawn and beds of summer
flowers! How often she had weeded and watered those beds, when the
gardener went off on a “booze,” as had been his frequent custom,
pretending he had been “called away” by the illness of a near relative!
Pausing on the doorstep of the house she looked around her,--everything
was as it used to be,--the whole place expressing that unctuous pride
and neatness ordinary to the suburban villa adorned by suburban taste.
She rang the bell, and a smart parlour-maid appeared,--not one of the
old “staff” which had been under Diana’s management.

“Is Mrs. Polydore May in?” she asked.

The maid perked a saucy head. The dazzling beauty of the visitor
offended her--she had claims to a kind of music-hall prettiness herself.

“Mrs. May is in, but she’s resting and doesn’t wish to be disturbed,”
she replied--“Unless you’ve some pertikler appointment----”

“My business is very urgent,” said Diana, calmly. “I am a relative of
hers, just returned from abroad. I must see her--or Mr. May----”

“Perhaps Miss Preston----” suggested the parlour-maid.

Diana smiled. Miss Preston! Who was she? A new inmate of the
household?--a companion for “Ma”--and “young” enough for “Pa”?

“Yes--Miss Preston will do,” she said, and forthwith she was shown into
a shady little morning-room which she well remembered, where she used
to tot up the tradesmen’s books and sort the bills. A saucy-looking
girl with curly brown hair rose from the perusal of a novel and stared
at her inquiringly and superciliously.

“I have called to see Mrs. May”--she explained “on very particular and
personal business.”

“What name?” inquired the girl, with a standoffish air.

“The same as her own. Kindly tell her, please. Miss May.”

“I really don’t know whether she will see you,” said the girl,
carelessly. “I am her secretary and companion----”

“So I imagine!” and Diana, without being asked, sank gracefully into
an easy chair, which she remembered as comfortable--“I was also her
secretary and companion--for some time! She knows me very well!”

“Oh, in that case----But does she expect you?”

“Hardly!” And Diana smiled. “But I’m sure she’ll be glad to see me. You
are Miss Preston? Yes? Well then, Miss Preston, do please go and tell
her!”

At that moment, a loud voice called:

“Lucy! Loo--cee! Where’s my pipe?”

Diana laughed.

“The same old voice!” she said. “That’s Mr. May, isn’t it? He’s calling
you--and he doesn’t like being kept waiting, does he?”

Miss Preston’s face had suddenly flushed very red.

“I’ll tell Mrs. May,” she stammered, and hurriedly left the room.

Diana gazed about her on all the little familiar things she had so
often dusted and arranged in their different places. They were all so
vastly removed now in association that they might have been relics
of the Stone Age so far as she was concerned. All at once the door
opened and a reddish face peered in, adorned with a white terrier
moustache--then a rather squat body followed the face and “Pa” stood
revealed. With an affable, not to say engaging air, he said:

“I beg your pardon! Are you waiting to see anyone?”

Diana rose, and her exquisite beauty and elegance swept over his little
sensual soul like a simoon.

“Yes!” she answered, sweetly, while he stared like a man hypnotised--“I
want to see Mrs. May--and _you_!”

“Me!” he responded, eagerly--“I am only too charmed!”

“But I had better speak to Mrs. May first,” she continued--“I have
something very strange to tell her about her daughter----”

“Her daughter! Our daughter! My poor Diana!” And Mr. May immediately
put on the manner of a pious grocer selling short weight--“Our darling
was drowned last summer!--drowned! Drowned while bathing in a dangerous
cove on the Devon coast. Terrible--terrible!--And she was so----”

“Young?” suggested Diana, sympathetically.

“No--er--no!--not exactly young!--she was not a girl like
you!--no!--but she was so--so useful--so adaptable! And you have
something strange to tell us about her?--well, why not begin with me?”

He approached her more closely with a “conquering” smile. She repressed
her inclination to laugh, and said, seriously:

“No--I really think I had better explain matters to Mrs. May first--and
I should like to be quite alone, please,--without Miss Preston.”

At that moment Miss Preston returned and said:

“Mrs. May will see you.” Then, addressing Mr. May, she added: “This
lady says she is some relative of yours--her name is May.”

Mr. James Polydore’s small grey-green eyes opened as widely as their
lids would allow.

“A relative?” he repeated. “Surely you are mistaken?--I hardly
think----”

“Please don’t perplex yourself!” said Diana, sweetly. “I will explain
everything to Mrs. May--she will remember! Can I go to her now?”

“Certainly!” and Mr. May looked bewildered, but was too much
overwhelmed by his visitor’s queenly air and surpassing loveliness to
collect his wits, or ask any very pressing questions. “Let me show you
the way!”

He preceded her along the passage to the drawing-room where Mrs. May,
newly risen from the sofa, stood waiting to receive her mysterious
caller,--fatter and flabbier than ever, and attired in an ill-fitting
grey gown with “touches” of black about it by way of the remainder of
a year’s mourning. Diana knew that old grey gown well, and had often
deplored its “cut” and generally hopeless floppiness.

“Margaret,” announced Mr. May, with a jaunty air--“Here is a very
charming young lady come to see you--Miss May!” Then to Diana: “As
you wish to have a private talk, I’ll leave you, and return in a few
minutes.”

“Thanks very much!” answered Diana,--and the next moment the door
closed, and she was left alone, with--her mother. No emotion moved
her,--not a shadow of tenderness,--she only just wondered how she ever
came to be born of such a curious-looking person! Mrs. May stared at
her with round, unintelligent eyes like those of a codfish just landed.

“I have not the--the pleasure----” she began.

Diana advanced a step or two, holding out her hands. “Don’t you know
me?” she said, at once--“Mother?”

Mrs. May sidled feebly backwards like a round rickety table on casters,
and nearly fell against the wall.

“Don’t you know my voice?” went on Diana--“The voice you have heard
talking to you for over forty years?--I am your daughter!--your own
daughter, Diana! I am, indeed. I was not drowned though I let you all
think I was!--I ran away because I was tired of my hum-drum life at
home! I went abroad for a year and I have just come back. Oh, surely
something will tell you I am your own child! A mother’s instinct, you
know!” And she laughed,--a little laugh of chilliest satire. “I have
grown much younger, I know--I will tell you all about that and the
strange way it was done!--but I’m really your Diana! Your dear drowned
‘girl!’--I am waiting for you to put your arms round me and tell me how
glad you are to have me back alive and well!”

Mrs. May backed closer up against the wall and thrust both her
hands out in a defensive attitude. Her gooseberry eyes rolled in
her head,--her small, pursy mouth opened as though gasping for air.
Not a word did she utter till Diana made a swift, half-running step
towards her,--when she suddenly emitted a shrill scream like a
railway whistle--another and yet another. There was a scamper of feet
outside,--then the door was thrown open and Mr. May and Miss Preston
rushed in.

“What’s the matter? What on earth is the matter?” they cried,
simultaneously.

Mrs. May, cowering against the wall, pointed at her beautiful visitor.

“Take her away! Get hold of her!” she yelled. “Get hold of her quick!
Send for the police! She’s mad! Aa-aah! You’ve let a lunatic into the
house! She’s run away from some asylum! Lucy Preston, you ought to
be ashamed of yourself to let her in. James, you’re a fool! Aa-aah!”
Another wild scream. “Look how she’s staring at me! She says she’s
my daughter Diana--my daughter who was drowned last year! She’s
stark, raving mad! James, send for a doctor and a policeman to remove
her!--take care!--she may turn round and bite you!--you can never tell.
Oh, dear, oh, dear! To think that with my weak heart, you should let
a mad girl into the house! Oh, cruel, cruel! And to think she should
imagine herself to be my daughter Diana!”

Diana drew herself up like a queen addressing her subjects.

“I _am_ your daughter Diana!” she said--“Though how I came to be born
of such people I cannot tell! For I have nothing in common with you.
But I have told you the truth. I was not drowned on the Devon coast
in that cove near Rose Lea as I led you to imagine--I was tired of
my life with you and ran away. I have been in Switzerland for a year
and have just come back. I thought it was my duty to show myself
to you alive--but I want you as little as you want me. I will go.
Good-bye!--Good-bye you, who _were_ my mother!”

As she said this Mrs. May uttered another yell, and showed signs of
collapsing on the floor. Miss Preston hurried to her assistance,
while Mr. May, his knees shaking under him,--for he was an arrant
coward,--ventured cautiously to approach the beautiful “escaped
lunatic.”

“There, there!” he murmured soothingly,--he had an idea that
“there, there,” was a panacea for all the emotions of the sex
feminine--“Come!--now--er--come with me, like a good girl! Be
reasonable and gentle!--I’ll take care of you!--you know you are not
allowed to go wandering about by yourself like this, with such strange
ideas in your head!--Now come along quietly, and I’ll see what I can
do----”

Diana laughed merrily.

“Oh, Pa! Poor old Pa! Just the same Pa! Don’t trouble yourself and
don’t look so frightened! I won’t ‘bite’ you! My car is waiting and
I have to be back at the hotel in time for dinner.” And she stepped
lightly along out of the drawing-room without one backward glance at
the moaning Mrs. May, supported by Miss Preston, while James Polydore
followed her, vaguely wondering whether her mention of a car in waiting
might not be something like crazed Ophelia’s call for “Come, my coach!”

Suddenly she said:

“Is Grace Laurie still with you?”

He stared, thoroughly taken aback.

“Grace Laurie? My wife’s maid? She married and went to Australia six
months ago. How could you know her?”

“As your daughter Diana, I knew her, of course!” she replied. “Poor
Grace! She was a kind girl! _She_ would have recognised my voice, I’m
sure. Is it possible _you_ don’t?”

“I don’t, indeed!” answered “Pa” cautiously, while using his best
efforts to get her out of the house--“Come, come! I’m very sorry for
you,--you are evidently one of those ‘lost identity’ cases of which we
so often hear--and you are far too pretty to be in such a sad condition
of mind! You see, you don’t know yourself, and you don’t know what
you’re talking about! My daughter Diana was not like you at all,--she
was a middle-aged woman--Ah!--over forty----”

“So she was--so she _is_!” said Diana--“_I’m_ over forty! But, Pa, why
give yourself away? It makes _you_ so old!”

She threw him such a smile, and such a glance of arrowy brilliancy that
his head whirled.

“Poor child, poor child!” he mumbled, taking her daintily-gloved
hand and patting it. “Far gone!--far gone, indeed! And so beautiful,
too!--so very beautiful!” Here he kissed the hand he had grasped.
“There, there! You are almost normal! Be quite good! Here we are at the
door--now, are you sure you have a car? Shall I come with you?”

Diana drew her hand away from her father’s hold, and her laugh, silvery
sweet, rang out in a little peal of mirth.

“No, Pa! Fond as you are of the ladies, you cannot make love to your
own daughter! The Prayer Book forbids! Besides, a mad girl is not fit
for your little gallantries! You poor dear! One year has aged you
rather badly! Aren’t you a _leetle_ old for Miss Preston?”

A quick flush overspread James Polydore’s already rubicund countenance,
and he blinked his eyes in a special “manner” which he was accustomed
to use when feigning great moral rectitude. More than ever convinced
that his visitor was insane, he continued to talk on in blandly
soothing accents:

“Ah, I see your car? And no one with you? Dear, dear! I wish I could
escort you to--to wherever you are going----”

“No, you don’t--not just now!” said Diana, laughing. “You’re too
scared! But perhaps another time----”

She swung lightly away from him, and moved with her floating grace
of step along the drive to the carriage gate, where the car waited.
The driver jumped down and opened the door for her. She sprang in,
while James Polydore, panting after her, caught the chauffeur by the
coat-sleeve.

“I don’t think this young lady knows where she is going,” he said,
confidentially. “Where did you find her?”

The chauffeur stared.

“She’s at our hotel,” he answered--“And I’m driving her back there.”

Here Diana put her head out of the window,--her fair face radiant with
smiles.

“You see, it’s all right!” she said--“Don’t bother about me! You know
the----Hotel looking over the Park? Well, I’m there just now, but not
for long?”

“No, I’m sure not for long!” thought the bewildered James Polydore.
“You’ll be put in a ‘home’ for mental cases if you haven’t run away
from one already!” And it was with a great sense of relief that he
watched the chauffeur “winding up” and preparing to move off--the
lunatic would have no chance to “bite” him, as his wife had suggested!
But how beautiful she was! For the life of him he could not forbear
treating her to one of his “conquering” smiles.

“Good-bye, dear child!” he said. “Take care of yourself! Be quite good!
I--I will come and see you at your--your hotel.”

Diana laughed again.

“I’m sure you will! Why, Pa dear, you won’t be able to keep away! The
antique Mrs. Ross-Percival, whom you so much admire, is not ‘the’ only
beautiful woman in London! _Do_ remember that! Ta-ta!”

The car moved rapidly off, leaving James Polydore in a chaotic
condition of mind. He was, of course, absolutely convinced that the
girl who called herself his daughter Diana was the victim of a craze,
but how or when she became thus obsessed was a mystery to him. He
re-entered his house to struggle with the wordy reproaches of his
better-half, and to talk the matter over privately with the “companion
secretary,” Lucy Preston, whose attention he thought more safely
assured by a _tête-à-tête_, which apparently obliged him to put his
arm round her waist and indulge in sundry other agreeable endearments.
But the exquisite beauty of the “escaped lunatic” haunted him, and he
made up his mind to see her again at all costs, mad or sane, and make
searching inquiries concerning her.

Diana herself, speeding back to her hotel, realised afresh the
immensity of the solitude into which her new existence plunged her.
Her own father and mother did not recognise her,--her most trusted
friend, Sophy Lansing, refused to acknowledge her identity--well!--she
was indeed “born again”--born of strange elements in which things
human played no part, and she must needs accept the position. The
saving grace of it all was that she felt no emotion,--neither sadness
nor joy--neither fear nor shame;--she was, or she felt herself to be
a strange personality apart from what is understood as human life,
yet conscious of a life superior to that of humanity. If a ray of
light hovering above a world of shadows could be imagined as an
entity, a being, such would most accurately have described her curious
individuality.

That same evening her banker called upon her, bringing with him a
pleasant motherly-looking lady whom he introduced as Mrs. Beresford, a
widow, whose straitened circumstance made her very anxious to obtain
some position of trust, with an adequate salary. Her agreeable and
kindly manners, gentle voice, and undeniable good breeding impressed
Diana at once in her favour,--and then and there a settlement between
them was effected, much to the relief and satisfaction of the worthy
banker, who, without any hesitation, said that he “could not rest till
he felt sure Miss May was under good protection and care”--at which
she laughed a little but expressed her gratitude as prettily as any
“girl” might be expected to do. She invited him and her newly-engaged
chaperone to dine with her, and they all three went down to the hotel
dining-room together, where, of course, Diana’s amazing beauty made her
the observed of all observers. Especially did Captain the Honourable
Reginald Cleeve, seated at a table with an alarmingly stout wife and
two equally alarmingly plain daughters, stare openly and admiringly
at the fair enchantress with the wonderful sea-blue eyes and dazzling
complexion, and deeply did he ruminate in his mind as to how he could
best approach her, and ask whether she happened to be any relative to
the “Diana May” he had once known. He made an opportunity after dinner,
when she passed through the lounge hall with her companions, and paused
for a moment to look at the “Programme of Entertainments in London”
displayed for the information of visitors.

“Pray excuse me!” he said--“I chanced to hear your name--may I ask----”

“Anything!” Diana answered, smiling, while Mrs. Beresford, already
alert, came closer.

“I used to know,” went on the Captain, becoming rather confused
and hesitating--“a Miss Diana May--I wondered if you were any
relative----?”

“Yes, indeed!” said Diana, cheerfully--“I am!--quite a near relative!
Do come and see me to-morrow, will you? I have often heard of Captain
Cleeve!--and his _dear_ wife!--and his _sweet_ girls! Yes!--_do_ come!
Mrs. Beresford and I will be _so_ pleased!”

Here she took her new chaperone’s arm and gave it a little suggestive
squeeze, by way of assuring her that all was as it should be,--and with
another bewildering smile, and a reiterated “Do come!” she passed on,
with her banker (who had become a little stiff and standoffish at the
approach of Captain Cleeve) and Mrs. Beresford, and so disappeared.

Cleeve tugged vexedly at his moustache.

“A ‘near relative,’ is she? Then she knows! Or--perhaps not! She’s too
young--not more than eighteen at most. And the old Diana must be quite
forty-five! Hang it all!--this girl might be her daughter--but old
Diana never married--just like some old maids ‘faithful to a memory!’”
He laughed. “By Jove! I remember now! She got drowned last year--old
Diana did!--drowned somewhere in Devonshire. I read about it in the
papers and thought what a jolly good thing! Poor old Diana! And this
little beauty is a ‘near relative,’ is she? Well--well!--we’ll see!
To-morrow!”

But when to-morrow came, it brought him no elucidation of the mystery.
Diana had left the hotel. The manageress explained that through Mrs.
Beresford she had heard of a very charming furnished flat which she
thought would suit her, and which she had suddenly decided to take, and
she had gone to make the final arrangements.

“She left this note for you,” said the manageress, handing Cleeve
a letter. “She remembered she had asked you to call on her this
afternoon.”

He took the letter with a sudden qualm of “nerves.” It was simple
enough.

  “Dear Captain Cleeve” (it ran),

 “So sorry to put you off, but Mrs. Beresford and I are taking a flat
 and we shall be rather busy for the next few days, putting things in
 order. After that will you come and see me at the above address?

      “Yours sincerely,
                “Diana May.”

That was all,--but while reading it, Captain the Honourable’s head swam
round and round as if he were revolving in a wheel. For though the
letter purported to come from a “young” Diana, the handwriting--the
painfully familiar handwriting--was that of the “old” Diana!




CHAPTER XXIV


Genius takes a century or more to become recognised,--but Beauty
illumines this mortal scene as swiftly as a flash-light. Brief it
may be, but none the less brilliant and blinding; and men who are
for the most part themselves unintelligent and care next to nothing
for intellectuality, go down like beaten curs under the spell of
physical loveliness, when it is united to a dominating consciousness
of charm. Consciousness of charm is a powerful magnet. A woman may
be beautiful, but if she is of a nervous or retiring disposition and
sits awkwardly in the background twiddling her thumbs she is never a
success. She must know her own power, and, knowing it, must exercise
it. “Old” Diana May had failed to learn this lesson in the days of
her girlhood,--she had believed, with quite a touching filial faith,
in the pious and excessively hypocritical twaddle her father talked,
about the fascination of “modest, pretty girls, who were unconscious
of their beauty”--with the result that she had seen him, with other
men, avoid such “modest, pretty girls” altogether, and pay devoted
court to _im_modest, “loud” and impertinent women, who asserted their
“made-up” good looks with a frank boldness which “drew” the men on
like a shoal of herrings in a net, and left the “modest, pretty girls”
out in the cold. “Old” Diana had, by devotion to duty and constancy in
love, missed all her chances,--but the “young” Diana, albeit “of mature
years,” knew better now than to “miss” anything. She was mistress of
her own situation, so completely that the hackneyed expression of “all
London at her feet” for once proclaimed a literal truth. London is, on
the whole, very ready to have something to worship,--it is easily led
into a “craze.” It is a sort of Caliban among cities,--a monster that
capers in drink and curses in pain, having, as Shakespeare says of his
uncouth creation: “A forward voice to speak well of his friend,” and
a “backward voice to utter foul speeches and detract.” But for once
London was unanimous in giving its verdict for Diana May as the most
beautiful creature it had ever seen. Photographers, cinema-producers,
dressmakers, tailors, jewellers besieged her; she was like the lady
of the Breton legend, who lived at the top of a brazen tower, too
smooth and polished for anyone to climb it, or for any ladder to be
supported against it, and whose face at the window drove all beholders
mad with longing for the unattainable. One society versifier made
a spurt of fame for himself by describing her as “a maiden goddess
moulded from a dream,” whereat other society versifiers were jealous,
and made a little commotion in the press by way of advertisement. But
Diana herself, the centre of all the stir, showed no sign of either
knowing or appreciating the social excitement concerning her, and her
complete indifference only made her more desirable in the eyes of her
ever-increasing crowd of admirers.

Once established in her flat with her chaperone, Mrs. Beresford, she
lived the most curiously removed life from all the humanity that
surged and seethed around her. The few appearances she made at operas,
theatres, restaurants and the like were sufficient to lift her into
the sphere of the recognised and triumphant “beauty” of the day.
Coarse and vulgar seemed all the “faked” portraits of the half-nude
sirens of stage and music-hall in the pictorial press, compared with
the rare glimpses of the ethereal, almost divine loveliness which
was never permitted to be copied by any painter or photographer.
Once only did an eager camera-man press the button of his “snapshot”
machine face to face with Diana as she came out of a flower-show,--she
smiled kindly as she passed him and he thought himself in heaven. But
when he came to develop his negative it was “fogged,” as though it
had had the light in front of it instead of behind it, as photography
demands. This accident was a complete mystification, as he had been
more than usually careful to take up a correct position. However, other
photographers were just as unfortunate, and none were able to obtain
so much as a faint impression of the fair features which dazzled every
male beholder who gazed upon them. Artists, even the most renowned
R.A.’s, were equally disappointed,--she, the unapproachable, the cold,
yet enchanting “maiden goddess moulded from a dream” would not “sit”
to any one of them,--would not have anything to do with them at all,
in fact--and fled from them as though she were a Daphne pursued by
many Apollos. A very short time sufficed to surround her with a crowd
of adorers and would-be lovers, chief and most persistent among them
being Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, and--that antique Adonis,
her father, James Polydore May. The worthy James had all his life been
in the habit of forming opinions which were diametrically opposed to
the opinions of everyone else,--and pursuing this course always to his
own satisfaction, he had come to the conclusion that this “Diana May”
who declared herself to be his daughter, was an artful _demi-mondaine_
and adventuress with a “craze.” He had frequently heard of people who
imagined themselves to be the reincarnated embodiments of the dead.
“Why, God bless my soul, I should think so!” he said to a man at the
Club who rallied him about his openly expressed admiration for the “new
beauty” who bore the same name as that of his “drowned” daughter--“I
met a woman once who told me she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra!
Now this girl, just because she happens to have my name, sticks to her
idea, that she is _my_ Diana----”

“You’d like her to be, wouldn’t you?” chuckled his friend. “But if she
takes you for her father----”

“She does--poor child, she does!” and James Polydore May sighed. “You
would hardly believe it----”

“Why not?”--and the friend chuckled again--“You’re quite old enough!”

With this unkind shot from a bent bow of malice he went off, leaving
James Polydore in an angry fume. For he--James--was not “old”--he
assured himself--he was _not_ old,--he would not be old! His wife was
“old”--women age so quickly!--but he--why he was “in the prime of
life;” all men over sixty are--in their own opinion. The beautiful
Diana had ensnared him,--and his sensual soul being of gross quality,
was sufficiently stimulated by her physical charm to make him eager
to know all he could of her. She herself had not been in the least
surprised when he found out her address and came to visit her. The
presence of Mrs. Beresford rather disconcerted him,--that lady’s quiet
good sense, elegant manners and evident affection for the lovely “girl”
she chaperoned, were a little astonishing to him. Such a woman could
not be the keeper of a lunatic? Diana never entered into the matter of
her relationship with James Polydore to Mrs. Beresford,--it entertained
her more or less ironical humour to see her own father playing the
ardent admirer, and whenever Mr. May called, as he often did, she
always had some laughing remark to make about her “old relative,” who
was, she declared, “rather a bore.” Mrs. Beresford was discreet enough
to ask no questions, and so James Polydore came and went, getting no
“forrader” with the fair one, notwithstanding all his efforts to make
himself agreeable, and to dislodge from her mind the strange obsession
which possessed it.

One day he went to see Sophy Lansing--never a favourite of his--and
tried to find out what she thought of the “Diana May” whose name was
now almost one to conjure with. But Sophy had little patience to bestow
on him.

“An adventuress, of course!” she declared. “I am surprised you don’t
take the trouble to prosecute her for presuming to pass herself off as
your daughter! And I’ll tell you this much--Diana--_your_ Diana--never
was drowned!”

James Polydore’s mouth opened,--he stared, wondering if he had heard
aright.

“Never was drowned?” he echoed, feebly.

“No! Never was drowned!” repeated Sophy, firmly. “She ran away from
you--and no wonder! You were always a bore,--and she was always being
reproached as an ‘old maid’ and ‘in the way.’ She slaved for you and
her mother from morning till night and never had a kind word or a
thank-you. _I_ advised her to break away from the hum-drum life you
made her lead, and on that morning when you thought her drowned, she
came to _me_! Ah, you may stare! She did! She saw an advertisement in
a French paper of a scientist in Geneva wanting a lady assistant to
help him in his work, and she went there to try for the situation and
got it. I rigged her out and lent her some money. She’s paid it all
back, and for all I know she’s in Geneva still, though she’s under an
agreement not to write to anyone or give her address. She’s been gone a
year now.”

Mr. May’s dumpy form stiffened visibly.

“May I ask,” he said, pompously--“May I ask, Miss Lansing, why you have
not thought proper to communicate these--these strange circumstances to
me before?”

Sophy laughed.

“Because I promised Diana I wouldn’t,” she answered. “She knew and _I_
knew that you and Mrs. May would be perfectly happy without her. She
has taken her freedom, and I hope she’ll keep it!”

“Then--my daughter is--presumably--still alive?” he said. “And instead
of dying, she has--well!--deserted us?”

“Exactly!” replied Sophy. “I would give you the name of the scientist
for whom she is or was working, only I suppose you’d write and make
trouble. When I had, as I thought, a letter from her the other day,
saying she was returning to London, I got everything ready here to
receive her--but when this artful girl turned up----”

“Oh, the girl came to see you, did she?” Mr. May mumbled. “The--the
adventuress----?”

“Of course she did!--and actually brought me my watch-bracelet--one
I had lent to Diana--as a sort of proof of identity. But of course
nothing can make a woman of forty a girl of eighteen!”

Mr. May put his hand to his bewildered head.

“No--no--of course not!--I--I must tell Mrs. May our daughter is
alive--it will be a shock--of surprise----”

“No doubt!” said Sophy, sharply. “But she’s dead to _you_! Remember
that! If I didn’t fear to make trouble for her I’d wire to her employer
at Geneva about this pretender to her name--only it wouldn’t do any
good, and I’d rather not interfere. And I advise you not to go dangling
after the ‘new beauty,’ as she’s called--you really are too old for
that sort of thing!”

Mr. May winced. Then he drew himself up with an effort at dignity.

“I shall endeavour to trace my daughter,” he said. “And I regret I
cannot rely on your assistance, Miss Lansing! You have deceived us very
greatly----”

“Twaddle!” interrupted Miss Lansing, defiantly. “You made Diana
wretched--and she’d have gone on housekeeping for you till she had lost
all pleasure in living,--now she’s got a good salary and a situation
which is satisfactory, and I’ll never help you to drag her back to the
old jog-trot of attending to your food and comfort. So there! As for
this, ‘bogus’ Diana, the best thing you can do is to go and tell her
you know all about it, and that she can’t take you in any more.”

“She’s the most beautiful thing ever seen!” he said, suddenly and with
determination.

Sophy Lansing gave him an “all over” glance of utter contempt.

“What’s that to you if she is?” she demanded. “Will you _never_
recognise your age? She might be your daughter--almost your
granddaughter! And you want to make love to her? Bah!”

With a scornful sweep of her garments she left him, and he found his
way out of the house more like a man in a dream than in a reality.
He could hardly believe that what she had told him was true--that
Diana--his daughter Diana, was alive after all! He wondered what
effect the news would have on his wife? After so much “mourning” and
expressions of “terrible shock,”--the whole drowning business was
turned into something of a comedy!

“Miss Lansing ought to be ashamed of herself!” he thought, indignantly.
“A regular hypocrite! Why, she wrote a letter of sympathy and ‘deep
sorrow’ for the loss of her ‘darling Diana!’ Disgraceful! And if the
story is true and Diana has really run away from us, we should be
perfectly justified in disowning her!”

Full of mingled anger and bewilderment he decided to go and see the
“adventuress” known as Diana May and tell her all. She would not, he
thought, pretend any longer to be his daughter if she knew that his
daughter was living. He found her in the loveliest of “rest gowns,”
reclining on a sofa with a book in her hand,--she scarcely stirred from
her attitude of perfect ease as he entered, except to turn her head
round on her satin pillow and smile at him. Quite unnerved by that
smile, he sat down beside her and taking her hand raised it to his lips.

“What a gallant little Pa it is!” she observed, lazily. “I wonder what
‘Ma’ would say if she saw you!”

He put on an air of mild severity.

“My dear girl,” he said. “I wish you would stop all this nonsense and
be sensible! I have heard some news to-day which ought to put an end to
your pretending to be what you are not. My daughter--my real daughter
Diana--is alive.”

Diana laughed.

“Of course! Very much so! I should not be here if she were not. Do I
seem dead?”

He made a gesture of impatience.

“Tut, tut! If you _will_ persist----”

“Naturally I will persist!” she said, sitting up on the sofa, her
delicate laces falling about her like a cloud and her fair head
lifted like that of a pictured angel--“I _am_ Diana! I suppose you’ve
been seeing Sophy Lansing--she’s the only living being who knows my
story and even she doesn’t recognise me now. But I can’t help _her_
obstinacy, or _yours_! I _am_ Diana!”

“_My_ daughter,” said Mr. May, with emphasis--“is in Geneva----”

“_Was_,” interrupted Diana. “And _is_--here!”

Mr. May gave a groan of utter despair.

“No use--no use!” he said. “One might as well argue with the
wind as with one of these mentally obsessed persons! Perfectly
hopeless!--hopeless----!”

Diana sprang off her sofa and stood erect, confronting him.

“See here!” she said--“When I lived at home with you, sacrificing all
my time to you and my mother, and only thinking of my duty to you both,
you found me ‘in the way.’ Why? Merely because I was growing old.
You never thought there was any cruelty in despising me for a fault
which seems common to all nature. You never cared to consider that
you yourself were growing old!--no, for you still seek to play the
juvenile and the amorous! What you men consider legitimate in your own
sex, you judge ridiculous in ours. You look upon me as ‘young’--when
in very truth I am of the age of the same Diana whom as your daughter
you wearied of--but youth has been given to my ‘mature years’ in a way
which you in your ignorance of all science would never dream of. You,
like most men, judge by outward appearances only. The physical, which
is perishable, attracts you--and you have no belief in the spiritual,
which is imperishable. But the spiritual wins!”

Mr. May sat winking and blinking under this outburst, which was to him
entirely incomprehensible, though he was uncomfortably conscious of the
radiance of eyes that played their glances upon him like beams from
fiery stars.

“There, there!” he said at last, nervously,--resorting to his usual
soothing formula--“You are overwrought--a little hysterical--a sudden
access of this--this unfortunate mistaken identity trouble. I will come
back and talk to you another day----”

“Why should you come back?” she demanded. “What do you want of me?”

James Polydore was somewhat confused by this straight question. What
indeed did he want of her? He was too much of a moral coward to
formulate the answer, even to himself. She was beautiful, and he wanted
to caress her beauty,--old as he was, he would have liked to kiss
that exquisite mouth, curved like a rose-petal, and run his wrinkled
fingers through the warm and lavish gold of the hair that waved over
the white brow and small ears like rippling sunshine. He was afflicted
by the disease of senile amourousness for all women--but for this one
in particular he was ready and eager to go to all lengths of fatuous
foolishness possible to an old man in love, if he could only have been
sure she was not insane! While he stood hesitating, and twitching his
eyelids in the peculiar “manner” he affected when he had thoughts to
conceal, she answered her own question for him.

“You want to make love to me,” she said. “As I have told you before,
that can’t be done. I am your daughter,--deny it as you may to the
end, nothing can alter the fact. Do you remember the man I was engaged
to?--Captain Cleeve?--the ‘Honourable’ Reginald Cleeve?”

At this he was fairly startled and he gave a gasp of astonishment.

“I remember the man my daughter was engaged to,” he said. “His name was
Cleeve. But he is married----”

“Very much so!” and Diana smiled. “But that doesn’t prevent his making
love to me--and I let him do it! You see, _he’s_ no relation!--and
I don’t consider his fat wife any more than he considered me when
he married _her_ and threw _me_ over! But he’s like you--he doesn’t
believe I’m the old Diana!”

“Of course not!” and Mr. May expanded his chest with a long breath of
superior wisdom. “I should like to see him and talk to him about you
and your sad condition of mind----”

“No doubt you would, but you won’t,” said Diana calmly. “I have
forbidden him to go near you for the present. He dare not ask any
questions about me--till--till I have done with him!”

What a look there was in her eyes! James Polydore shrank under it as
though it blinded him.

“Dare not? Done with him?” he echoed stupidly.

She laughed, quite sweetly.

“There, poor Pa, do go home! Pay your attentions to my mother’s
companion, Miss Preston--if she really likes your endearments, why,
then, ‘crabbed age and youth’ _may_ live together! Poor mother! She
never found out _all_ your little ways!--some of them she discovered
by chance--but _I_ knew them all! What would you give to be as young
as I am at your age! ‘Too late, too late!--ye cannot enter now!’”
Her laughter rang out again,--then approaching him, she laid her
hands lightly on his shoulders and kissed him. “There, that’s a true
daughter’s kiss!--make the best of it, dear Pa! Go home and be a good,
nice, moral old man!--sit on one side of the fireplace with Ma on the
other, and settle down into Darby and Joan!--such a nice couple!--with
a dash of Miss Preston between to keep up your spirits! And don’t come
back here _ever_!--unless you accept the true position we occupy of
father and daughter--father growing old, and daughter growing young!”

Standing in the centre of the room, with the soft ivory chiffon and
lace of her “rest gown” trailing about her like the delicate _cirri_
floating across a summer sky, she appeared like a vision of something
altogether beyond mere woman, and as the little gross, sensual man
who _had been_ her father looked at her, a sudden unnameable terror
overcame him. His limbs shook--his brain reeled,--within himself a
frightened sense of something supernatural paralysed his will--and he
made for the door like a man groping in the dark. She threw it open for
him with a queenly gesture of dismissal.

“Tell my mother,” she said, “that her daughter is truly alive, and that
she has kissed you!--not as the ‘old’ but as the young Diana! Don’t
forget!”




CHAPTER XXV


The chaotic condition of mind into which Mr. Polydore May found himself
plunged by what to him was the inexplicable and crazy conduct of the
inexplicable and crazy young woman who so obstinately maintained her
right to consider herself his daughter, was nothing to the well-nigh
raving state of Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, who was faced
with a still more intolerable position. He, when he had first called
upon Diana as she had invited him to do, experienced something in the
nature of a thunder-clap, when she explained, with much gracious,
albeit cold composure, that she was his former betrothed whom he had
“jilted” for a younger and wealthier woman. If he had been suddenly
hypnotised by a remorseless conjurer, he could not have been more
stricken into speechless and incredulous amazement. He sat in a chair
opposite to his fair and smiling informant, staring helplessly, while
she, having had tea brought in, prepared him a cup with hospitable ease
and condescension.

“When you got the note I left for you at the hotel,” she said, “surely
you recognised my handwriting?”

Still staring, he moistened his dry lips with his tongue and tried to
speak.

“Your handwriting?” he stammered--“I--I thought it very like the
handwriting of--of another Diana May I used to know----”

“Yes--another Diana May,” she said, bending her grave clear eyes upon
him--“A Diana May whose life you ruthlessly spoiled,--whose trust in
men and things you murdered--and why! Because you met a woman with
more money, who was younger than I--I, who had aged through waiting
patiently for you, as you had asked me to do--because you thought that
by the time you returned from India I should be what Society calls
_passée_! And for such callous and selfish considerations as these you
deliberately sacrificed my happiness! But I have been given a strange
and unexpected vengeance!--look at your wife and look at me!--which now
is the ‘younger’ of the two?”

He moved uneasily--there was something in her aspect that stabbed him
as though with physical force and pain.

“You--you must certainly know you are talking nonsense!” he said at
last, trying to pull himself together. “Yours is the queerest craze I
ever heard of! Here are you, a beautiful young girl in the very dawn of
womanhood, pretending to be a middle-aged spinster who was accidentally
drowned last year off the coast of Devon! I don’t know how you’ve come
by the same name as hers--or why your handwriting should resemble
hers,--it’s mere coincidence, no doubt--but that you should actually
declare yourself as one and the same identity with hers, is perfectly
ridiculous! I don’t deny that you seem to have got hold of the other
Diana May’s story--I _was_ engaged to her, that’s true--but I had to be
away in India longer than was at first intended--seven years nearly.
And seven years is a long time to keep faith with a woman who doesn’t
grow younger----”

“Doesn’t grow younger--yes--I see!” echoed Diana, with an enigmatical
smile. “And seven years is a long time for a woman to keep faith with a
man under the same circumstances. _You_ have not grown younger!”

He reddened. His personal vanity as “an officer and a gentleman” was
far greater than that of any woman.

“If we live, we are bound to grow older----” he said.

“Sometimes,” acquiesced Diana, pleasantly. “It is not always necessary.
In my case, for example----”

Looking at the fair and youthful outline of her features, the sense
of extreme incongruity between what she actually was and what she
resolutely avowed herself to be touched his innermost sense of humour,
and he laughed outright.

“Of course you are playing!” he said--“Playing with yourself and
me! You must be one of those queer psychists who imagine they are
re-embodied spirits of the past--but I don’t mind if that sort of thing
really amuses you! Only I wonder you don’t imagine yourself to be the
reincarnation of some fairy princess--or even the Diana who was the
goddess of the moon, rather than an ordinary spinster of the British
middle-class, who, even in her best days, was nothing more than the
usual type of pretty English girl.”

“To whom you wrote a good deal of ‘gush’ in your time--” said Diana
composedly--“which she was fool enough to believe. Do you remember this
letter?”

From a quaint blue velvet bag hanging at her side by a silver chain,
she drew a folded paper and handed it to him.

With eyes that grew hot and dim in giddy perplexity, he read his own
writing:

 “How I love you, my own sweet little Diana! You are to me the most
 adorable girl in the world, and if ever I do an unkind thing to you or
 wrong you in any way, may God punish me for a treacherous brute! My
 one desire in life is to make you happy.”

His hand,--the massive, veiny hand of a man accustomed to “do himself
well,” trembled, and the paper shook between his fingers.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, unsteadily--“It--it was written
quite a long time ago!”

“You sent it to me,” replied Diana. “I returned all your other letters,
but I kept that one,--and this.”

Another note was drawn daintily out from the blue velvet bag, and she
handed it to him with a smile.

Again his burning eyes travelled along his own familiar scrawl:

 “I am quite sure you will understand that time has naturally worked
 changes in you as well as in myself, and I am obliged to confess that
 the feelings I had for you no longer exist. But you are a sensible
 woman, and you are old enough now to realise that we are better apart.”

He lifted his head and tried to look at her. She met his shifting gaze
with a clear and level splendour of regard that pierced his very soul
with a subconscious sense of humiliation and conviction. Yet it was not
possible for him to believe her story,--the whole suggestion was too
fantastic and incredible. He gave her back the letters. She took them
from his hand.

“Well!” she said, tentatively.

“Well!” he rejoined--then forced a difficult smile--“I wrote these
things, certainly, but how you came by them I don’t know. Though, after
all, you might easily have met the other Diana May, and she might have
given you her confidence----”

“And her lover’s letters to keep?” said Diana, contemptuously. “So like
her! Reginald Cleeve, you said just now that I was playing--playing
with you and with myself. Believe me, I never was further from
‘play’ in my life! I’m in deadly earnest! I want----” She paused
and laughed--then added: “I only want what I can have for the
asking--_you_!”

He sprang up from his chair and came nearer to her, his face aglow with
ardour. She motioned him back.

“Not yet!” she said,--and the seductive beauty of her face and form
smote him as with a whip of steel--“It isn’t love at first sight,
you know, like that of Romeo and Juliet! We are _old_ lovers! And
_you_--you are married.”

“What does that matter?” he said, defiantly. “No man considers himself
bound nowadays by the matrimonial tie!”

“No?” she queried, sweetly. “I’m so glad to know that! It makes me
doubly thankful that I never married you!”

He made a closer step to her side and caught both her hands in his.

“Do you still persist,” he said, “in your idea that you are the old
Diana?--the woman I was engaged to?--you, a mere girl?”

She smiled most entrancingly up into the feverish eyes that searched
her face.

“I still persist!” she answered--“I have always loved telling the
truth, no matter how unpleasant! I _am_ the ‘old’ Diana to whom you
were engaged, and whom you heartlessly ‘threw over.’ Her, and no
other!--as ‘old’ as ever in years though not in looks!”

His grasp of her tightened.

“Then in Heaven’s name have your own way, you beautiful crazed
creature!” he said, passionately,--“If that is your obsession or fancy,
stick to it, and come back to me!”

She loosened her hands,--he tried to hold them, but they seemed to melt
from his clasp in the most curious and uncanny way like melting snow.
Drawing herself apart, she stood looking at him.

“Come back to you!” she echoed--“I never left you! It was you
who left _me_!--for no fault! And, now I suppose you would leave
your wife,--also for no fault--except perhaps--” and she laughed
lightly--“that of too much general weightiness! But she has given you
children--are you not proud and happy to be ‘the father of a family’?
Your daughters are certainly very plain,--but you must not go by
outward appearances!”

Her lovely face dimpled with smiles--her brilliant eyes, full of a
compelling magnetism, filled him with a kind of inward rage--he gave a
gesture of mingled wrath and pain.

“You are quite unlike the old Diana,” he said, bitterly. “She was the
gentlest of creatures,--she would never have mocked me!”

A rippling peal of laughter broke from her--laughter that was so cold
and cutting that its very vibration on the air was like the tinkling of
ice-drops on glass.

“True!” she said. “She was too gentle by half! She was meek and
patient--devoted, submissive and loving--she believed in a man’s
truth, honour and chivalry! Yes--the poor ‘old’ Diana had feeling and
emotions--but the ‘young’ Diana has none!”

The afternoon sunshine pouring through the window bathed her figure
in a luminance so dazzling and made of her such a radiant vision of
exquisite perfection that he was fairly dazzled, while the same uneasy
sense of the “supernatural” troubled him as it had troubled Mr. James
Polydore May.

“Well, if you _will_ talk like this,” he said, almost reproachfully--“I
had better not trouble you with my company--you said you wanted me----”

“So I do!” she rejoined--“I want you very much!--but not just now!
You can go--but come again soon! However I need not ask you--you are
sure to come! And you need not tell your wife to call upon me--I will
dispense with that formality! I prefer to ignore your ‘family!’ _Au
revoir!_”

She stretched out her hand--a little, lovely hand like that of the
marble Psyche--and hardly knowing what he did, he covered it with
kisses. She smiled.

“There, that will do!” she said--“Another time----”

She gave him a look that shot like lightning from her eyes into his
brain, and set it in a whirl.

“Diana!” He uttered the name as if it were a prayer.

“Another time!” she said, in a low, sweet tone--“And--quite soon!
But--go now!”

He left her reluctantly, his mind disquieted and terrorised. Some
potent force appeared to have laid hold of his entire being, drawing
every nerve and muscle as if by a strong current of electricity. In
a dim sort of way he was afraid,--but of what? This he could not
formulate to himself, but when he had gone out of her presence he was
aware of a strange and paralysing weakness and tiredness,--sensations
new to him, and--as he was a great coward where any sort of illness
was concerned--alarming. And yet--such was the hold her beauty had
on him, that he had made up his mind to possess it or die in the
attempt. All the men he knew about town were infatuated with the mere
glimpse of the loveliness which flashed upon them like the embodiment
of light from another and fairer world, and there was not one among
them who did not secretly indulge in the same hope as himself. But the
craze or “obsession,” or whatever it was that dominated her, as he
thought, gave him a certain advantage over her other admirers. For if
she really believed he had formerly been her lover, then surely there
was something in her which would draw her to him through the mere
fancy of such a possibility. Like all men who are largely endowed with
complacent self-satisfaction, he was encased in a hide of conceit too
thick to imagine that with the “obsession” (as he considered it) which
she entertained, might also go the memory of his callous treatment
of her in the past, entailing upon him a possible though indefinable
danger.

She, meanwhile, after he had gone, sat down to think. A long mirror
facing her gave her the reflection of her own exquisite face and
figure--but her expression for the moment was cold and stern, as that
of some avenging goddess. She looked at her hands--the hands her
traitor lover had kissed--and opening a quaint jar of perfume on the
table beside her, she dashed some of its contents over their delicate
whiteness.

“For he has soiled them!” she said--“They are outraged by his touch!”

A deep scorn gathered in her eyes like growing darkness.

“Why should I trouble myself with any vengeance upon him?” she asked
herself inwardly. “A mere lump of sensuality!--a man who considers
no principle save that of his own pleasure, and has no tenderness
or memory for me as the ‘old’ spinster whom he thought (and still
thinks) was drowned in Devon!--what is he to me but an utterly
contemptible atom!--and yet--the only sentiment I seem to be capable
of now is hate!--undying hate, the antithesis of the once undying
love I bore him! The revolt of my soul against him is like a revolt
of light against darkness! Is he not punished enough by the gross
and commonplace domestic life he has made for himself! No!--not
enough!--not enough to hurt him!”

She drew a long breath, conscious of the power which filled her body
and spirit,--a power which now for the first time seemed to herself
terrific. She knew there was pent up within her a lightning force
which was swift to attract and equally swift to destroy.

“Those old Greek stories of gods and goddesses whose unveiled glory
slew the mortals who dared to doubt them were quite true prophecies,”
she thought--“only they did not penetrate far enough into the myth
to discover the real scientific truth of how the mortal could put on
immortality. Not even now, though the fusion and transmutation of
elements every day discloses more and more marvels of Nature, they have
not tested the possibilities of change which science may bring about in
the composition of human bodies--that is for the future to discover and
determine.”

At that moment Mrs. Beresford entered the room with a telegram.

“For you, Diana,” she said. “It has just come.”

Opening it, Diana read the message it brought.

 “Professor Chauvet has died suddenly. Has left you his sole heiress.
 Please meet me in Paris as soon as possible to settle business. Your
 presence necessary. Reply Hôtel Windsor.--Dimitrius.”

The paper dropped from her hands. She had forgotten Professor Chauvet
altogether! The crusty yet kindly old Professor who had asked her to
marry him--she had actually forgotten him! And now--he was dead! She
sat amazed and stricken, till the gentle voice of Mrs. Beresford roused
her.

“Anything wrong, my dear?”

“Oh, no!--yet--yes!--perhaps a little! A friend has died suddenly--very
suddenly--and he has made me his heiress.”

Mrs. Beresford smiled a little.

“Well, isn’t that good news?”

For the first time since her “awakening” under the fiery ordeal of
Dimitrius’s experiment, she experienced a painful thrill of real
“feeling.”

“No--I am sorry,” she said. “I thought I should never feel sorry for
anything--but I forgot and neglected this friend--and perhaps--if I had
remembered, he might not have died.”

A beautiful softness and tenderness filled her eyes, and Mrs. Beresford
thought she had never seen or imagined any creature half so lovely as
she looked.

“We must go to Paris,” she said. “We can easily start to-morrow. I will
answer this wire--and then write.”

She pencilled a brief reply:

 “Deeply grieved. Will come as soon as possible.--Diana.”

--and ringing the bell, bade the servant who answered the summons take
it to the telegraph office and send it off without delay.

“Yes--I am very sorry!” she said again to Mrs. Beresford--“I reproach
myself for needless cruelty.”

Mrs. Beresford, mild-eyed and grey-haired, looked at her half timidly,
half affectionately.

“I’m afraid, my dear, you _are_ cruel!--just a little!” she said. “You
make havoc in so many hearts!--and you do not seem to care!”

Diana shrugged her shoulders.

“Why should I care?” she retorted. “The havoc you speak of, is merely
the selfish desire of men to possess what seems to them attractive--it
goes no deeper!”

Then, noting Mrs. Beresford’s rather pained expression, she smiled. “I
seem hard, don’t I? But I have had experience----”

“You? My dear, you are so young!” and her kindly chaperone took her
hand and patted it soothingly. “When you are older you will think very
differently! When you love someone----”

“When I love!”--and the beautiful eyes shone glorious as
light-beams--“Ah, then! Why then--‘the sun will grow cold, and the
leaves of the Judgment Book will most certainly be unrolled!’”

That night she came to a sudden resolve to put away all her formerly
cherished ideas of revenging herself on Reginald Cleeve. Standing
before her mirror she saw her own beauty transfigured into a yet finer
delicacy when this determination became crystallized, as it were, in
her consciousness.

“What is my positive mind?” she asked herself. “It is a pole of
attraction, which has through the forces of air, fire and water learned
to polarise atoms into beautiful forms. It organises itself; but it is
also a centre which radiates power over a world of visible effects. So
that if I choose I can vitalise or _de_vitalise other forms. In this
way I could inflict punishment on the traitor who spoiled my former
life--but I live another life, now, in which he has no part. This being
so, why should I descend to pulverise base clay with pure fire? He will
meet his punishment now without any further effort of mine, beyond that
which I demand of justice!”

She raised her hand appealingly, as though she were a priestess
invoking a deity,--then, turning to her writing-table, she penned the
following lines:

 “To Reginald Cleeve.

 “I am summoned unexpectedly to Paris on business,--and the chances are
 that I shall not see you again. All that I have told you is absolutely
 true, no matter how much you may disbelieve the story. I am the woman
 you once pretended to love, and whose life you spoiled,--and I am the
 woman whom you love now, or (to put it roughly) whom you desire, but
 whose life you can never spoil again. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’--and
 when you read this, it is probable I shall have gone away, which is
 a good thing for your peace, and--safety. You have a wife,--you are
 the ‘father of a family’--be content with the domestic happiness
 you have chosen, and fulfil the responsibilities you have accepted.
 Good-bye!--and think of me no more except as the ‘old’

          “Diana.”


Now when this letter reached Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve
at his club, to which it was addressed, and where he had dined on the
evening of the day it was posted, which was the next but one to the day
of his interview with Diana, it was brought to him in the smoking-room,
and as his eyes ran over it he uttered an involuntary oath of such
force that even men inured to violent language looked up, amused and
inquisitive.

“What’s up?” asked an acquaintance seated near him.

“Oh, nothing! A dun!” he answered,--then, calming down, he lit a cigar.
After a few puffs at it he took up a newspaper--read a paragraph or
two--then laid it down.

“By the way,” he said, to the man who had spoken--“the famous
beauty--Diana May--is off to Paris.”

These words created a certain stir in the smoking-room. Several men
looked up.

“Oh, well! All lovely women go to Paris for their clothes!”

“Pardon!” said a dark-visaged young man, coming forward from a corner
where he had been writing a letter, and speaking with a foreign
accent--“Did I hear you mention a lady’s name--Diana May?”

Cleeve glanced him over with military frigidity.

“I did mention that name--yes.”

“Excuse me!--I am a stranger in London, and a friend has made me an
honorary member of this club for a short time--I knew a Miss Diana May
in Geneva--permit me----” And he proffered his visiting-card, on which
was inscribed:

      “_Marchese Luigi Farnese._”

“I met Miss May,” he continued, “at the house of a very distinguished
Russian scientist, Dr. Féodor Dimitrius. She had come from England on
a visit to his mother, so I was informed. But I had an idea at the
time that she had arrived in answer to an advertisement he had put in
the Paris newspapers for a lady assistant,--of course I may have been
wrong. She was a very bright, rather clever middle-aged person----”

“The Miss May I spoke of just now,” interpolated Cleeve, “is quite a
young girl--not more than eighteen or nineteen.”

“Oh, then!”--and Farnese made a profoundly apologetic bow--“it cannot
be the same. The lady I met was--ah!--thirty-five or so--perhaps forty.
She left Geneva very suddenly, and I have been trying to trace her ever
since.”

“May I ask why?” inquired Cleeve.

“Certainly! I have for long been interested in the scientific
investigations of Dr. Dimitrius--he is a very mysterious person,
and I fancied he might be trying some experiment on this lady, Miss
May. She gave me no idea of such a thing--she was quite a normal,
cheerful person,--still I had my suspicions and I was curious about
it. She went with him and his mother to winter at Davos Platz--I was
unable to follow them there, as I had a pressure of business--but
I heard from a friend that Miss May was the ‘belle’ of the season.
This rather surprised me, as she was not young enough to be a ‘belle’
unless”--here he paused, and uttered the next words with singular
emphasis--“Dimitrius had made her so.”

Cleeve uttered a sharp exclamation and then checked himself.

“This is not an age of fairy tales,” he said curtly.

“No--it is not, but it is an age of science, in which fairy tales are
realised,” rejoined Farnese. “But pray excuse me!--I am detaining
you--you could not by chance give me the address of this young lady you
speak of?--the Miss Diana May you know?”

“I do not consider myself entitled to do so,” answered Cleeve, coldly,
“without her consent.”

Farnese bowed.

“I entirely understand! If you should see her, you will, perhaps, do
me the kindness to mention my name and ask if she has ever heard it
before?”

“I will certainly do that,” agreed Cleeve,--whereupon they parted,
Captain the Honourable with his mind in a giddy whirl, and his passions
at fever heat. Come what would he must see Diana before she went to
Paris! He must ask her about this Dimitrius,--for the story he had just
heard seemed to hang together with her own fantastic “obsession!” But
no!--ten thousand times no!--it was not, it could not be possible that
the “old” Diana could thus have been miraculously transformed! Even
Science must have its limits! He glanced at his watch. It was past nine
o’clock,--very late for a call--yet he would risk it. Taking a cab, he
was driven with all speed to Diana’s flat,--the servant who opened the
door to him looked at him in surprise.

“Miss May and Mrs. Beresford have gone to Paris,” she said. “They left
this evening by the night boat train.”

He retreated, baffled and inwardly furious. For one moment he was
recklessly moved to follow them across Channel next morning--then he
remembered, with rather an angry shock, that he was “the father of a
family.” Convention stepped in and held up a warning finger.

“No--it wouldn’t do,” he ruminated, vexedly. “She”--here he alluded
to his fat wife--“she would make the devil’s own row, and I have
enough of her sulks as it is. I’d better do nothing,--and just wait
my chance. But--that exquisite Diana! _What_ is she? I _must_ know!
I must be off with the ‘old’ love, before I’m on with the new! But
_is_ she the ‘old’? That’s the puzzle. Is she the ‘old,’ or a young
Diana?” This was a question which was destined never to be answered,
so far as he was concerned. Diana had gone from him,--gone in that
swift, irrecoverable way which happens when one soul, advancing onward
to higher planes of power, is compelled to leave another of grosser
make (even though that other were lover or friend) to wallow in the
styes of sensual and material life. She, clothed in her vesture of
fire and light, as radiant as any spirit of legendary lore, was as
far removed from the clay man of low desires as the highest star from
the deepest earth. And though he did not know this, and never would
have been able, had he known, to realise the forceful vitality of her
existence, the same strange sense of physical weakness, tiredness and
general incapacity which had before alarmed him came upon him now with
such overwhelming weight that he could hardly drag his limbs across
the fashionable square in which his own house was situated. A great
helplessness possessed him,--and a thought, bitter as wormwood and
sharp as flame, flashed through his brain: “I am getting old!” It was a
thought he always put away from him--but just now it bore down upon him
with a kind of thunderous gloom. Yes--he was “getting old,”--he, who
had more or less contemptuously considered the “age” of the woman he
had callously thrown over sufficient cause for the rupture,--he, too,
was likely to be left out in the cold by the hurrying tide of warmer,
quicker, youthful life. The vision of the radiant eyes, the exquisite
features, the rose-leaf skin, and the supple, graceful form of the
marvellous Diana who so persistently declared herself to be his former
betrothed, floated before him in tempting, tantalising beauty,--and as
he opened his own house-door with his latch-key to enter that abode of
domestic bliss where his unwieldy wife talked commonplaces all day long
and bored him to death, he uttered something like a groan.

“Whatever her fancy or craze may be,” he said, “she is young! Young and
perfectly beautiful! It is I who am old!”




EPILOGUE


It was night in Paris,--a heavy night, laden with the almost tropical
heat and languor common to the end of an unusually warm summer. The
street-lamps twinkled dimly through vapour which seemed to ooze upwards
from the ground, like smoke from the fissures of a volcano, and men
walked along listlessly with heads uncovered to the faint and doubtful
breeze, some few occasionally pausing to glance at the sky, the aspect
of which was curiously divided between stars and clouds, brilliancy
and blackness. From the southern side of the horizon a sombre mass of
purple grey shadows crept slowly and stealthily onward, blotting out by
gradual degrees the silvery glittering of Orion and drawing a nun-like
veil over the full-orbed beauty of the moon, while at long intervals
a faint roll of thunder suggested the possibility of an approaching
storm. But the greater part of the visible heavens remained fair and
calm, some of the larger planets sparkling lustrously with strange,
flashing fire-gleams of sapphire and gold, and seeming to palpitate
like immense jewels swung pendant in the vast blue dome of air.

In the spacious marble court of a certain great house in the Avenue
Bois de Boulogne, the oppressive sultriness of the night was tempered
by the delicious coolness of a fountain in full play which flung a
quivering column of snow-white against the darkness and tinkled its
falling drops into a bronze basin below with a musical softness as of
far-distant sleigh-bells. The court itself was gracefully built after
Athenian models,--its slender Ionic columns supported a domed roof
which by daylight would have shown an exquisite sculptured design, but
which now was too dimly perceived for even its height to be guessed.
Beyond the enclosure stretched the vague outline of a garden which
adjoined the Bois, and here there were tall trees and drooping branches
that moved mysteriously now and then, as though touched by an invisible
finger-tip. Within each corner of the court great marble vases stood,
brimming over with growing blossoms,--pale light streaming from an open
window or door in the house shed a gleam on some statue of a god or
goddess half hidden among flowers,--and here in this cool quietness of
stately and beautiful surroundings sat, or rather reclined, Diana, on
a cushioned bench, her head turned towards her sole companion, Féodor
Dimitrius. He sat in a lounge chair opposite to her, and his dark and
brilliant eyes studied her fair features with wistful gravity.

“I think I have told you all,” he said, speaking in slow, soft tones.
“Poor Chauvet’s death was sudden, but from his written instructions I
fancy he was not unprepared. He has no relatives,--and he must have
found great consolation in making his will in your favour. For he cared
very greatly for you,--he told me he had asked you to marry him.”

Diana moved a little restlessly. As she did so a rosy flash glittered
from a great jewel she wore round her neck,--the famous “Eye of
Rajuna,” whose tragic history she had heard from Chauvet himself.

“Yes,” she answered--“That is true. But--I forgot!”

“You forgot?” he echoed, wonderingly. “You forgot a proposal of
marriage? And yet--when you came to me first in Geneva you thought love
was enough for everything,--your heart was hungry for love----”

“When I had a heart--yes!” she said. “But now I have none. And I do
not hunger for what does not exist! I am sorry I forgot the kind
Professor. But I did,--completely! And that he should have left me all
he possessed is almost a punishment!”

“You should not regard it as such,” he answered. “It is hardly your
fault if you forgot. Your thoughts are, perhaps, elsewhere?” He
paused,--but she said nothing. “As I have told you,” he went on,
“Chauvet has left you an ample fortune, together with this house and
all it contains--its unique library, its pictures and curios, to say
nothing of his famous collection of jewels, worth many thousands of
pounds--and as everything is in perfect order you will have no trouble.
Personally, I had no idea he was such a wealthy man.”

She was still silent, looking at him more or less critically. He felt
her eyes upon him, and some impulse stung him into sudden fervour.

“You look indifferent,” he said, “and no doubt you _are_ indifferent.
Your nature now admits of no emotion. But, so far as you are woman,
your circumstances are little changed. You are as you were when you
first became my ‘subject’--‘of mature years, and alone in the world
without claims on your time or your affections.’ Is it not so?”

A faint, mysterious smile lifted the corners of her lovely mouth.

“It is so!” she answered.

“You are alone in the world,--alone, alone, alone!” he repeated with a
kind of fierce intensity. “Alone!--for I know that neither your father
nor your mother recognise you. Am I right or wrong?”

Still smiling, she bent her head.

“Right, of course!” she murmured, with delicate irony. “How could _you_
be wrong!”

“Your own familiar friend will have none of you,” he went on, with
almost angry emphasis. “To the world you once knew, you are dead! The
man who was your lover--the man who, as you told me, spoilt your life
and on whom you seek to be revenged----”

She lifted one hand with an interrupting gesture.

“That is finished,” she said. “I seek vengeance no longer. No man is
worth it! Besides, I _am_ avenged.”

She half rose from her reclining attitude, and he waited for her next
word.

“I am avenged!” she went on, in thrilling accents--“And in a way that
satisfies me. My lover that was,--never a true lover at best,--is my
lover still--but with such limitations as are torture to a man whose
only sense of love is--Desire! My beauty fills him with longing,--the
thought of me ravages his soul and body--it occupies every thought and
every dream!--and with this passion comes the consciousness of age.
Age!--the great breakdown!--the end of all for _him_!--I have willed
that he shall feel its numbing approach each day,--that he shall know
the time is near when his step shall fail, his sight grow dim,--when
the rush of youthful life shall pass him by and leave him desolate.
Yes!--I am avenged!--he is ‘old enough now to realise that we are
better apart!’”

Her eyes glowed like stars,--her whole face was radiant. Dimitrius
gazed at her almost sternly.

“You are pitiless!” he said.

She laughed.

“As _he_ was,--yes!”

And rising to her full height, she stood up like a queen. She wore a
robe of dull amber stuff interwoven with threads of gold,--a small
circlet of diamonds glittered in her hair, and Chauvet’s historic
Eastern jewel, the “Eye of Rajuna,” flamed like fire on her white neck.

“Féodor Dimitrius,” she said,--and her voice had such a marvellously
sweet intonation that he felt it penetrate through every nerve--“You
say, and you say rightly, that ‘so far as I am woman’--my circumstances
are not changed from what they were when I first came to you in Geneva.
But only ‘so far as I am woman.’ Now--how do you know I am woman at
all?”

He lifted himself in his chair, gripping both arms of it with clenched
nervous hands. His dark eyes flashed a piercing inquiry into hers.

“What do you mean?” he half whispered. “What--what would you make me
believe?”

She smiled.

“Oh, marvellous man of science!” she exclaimed--“Must I teach you your
own discovery? You, who have studied and mastered the fusion of light
and air with elemental forces and the invisible whirl of electrons
with perpetually changing forms, must I, your subject, explain to
you what you have done? You have wrested a marvellous secret from
Nature--you can unmake and remake the human body, freeing it from all
gross substance, as a sculptor can mould and unmould a statue,--and do
you not see that you have made of me a new creature, no longer of mere
mortal clay, but of an ethereal matter which has never walked on earth
before?--and with which earth has nothing in common? What have such as
I to do with such base trifles as human vengeance or love?”

He sprang up and approached her.

“Diana,” he said slowly--“If this is true,--and may God be the
arbiter!--one thing in your former circumstances is altered--you are
not ‘without claims on your time and your affections.’ _I_ claim both!
I have made you as you are!--you are mine!”

She smiled proudly and retreated a step or two.

“I am no more yours,” she said, “than are the elements of which your
science has composed the new and youthful vesture of my unchanging
Soul! I admit no claim. When I served you as your ‘subject,’ you were
ready to sacrifice my life to your ambition; now when you are witness
to the triumph of your ‘experiment,’ you would grasp what you consider
as your lawful prize. Self!--all Self! But I have a Self as well--and
it is a Self independent of all save its own elements.”

He caught her hands suddenly.

“Love is in all elements,” he said. “There would be no world, no
universe without love!”

Her eyes met his as steadily as stars.

“There is no such thing as Love in all mankind!” she said. “The
race is cruel, destructive, murderous. What men call love is merely
sex-attraction--such as is common to all the animal world. Children
are to be born in order that man may be perpetuated. _Why_, one cannot
imagine! His civilisations perish--he himself is the merest grain
of dust in the universe,--unless he learns to subdue his passions
and progresses to a higher order of being on this earth, which he
never will. All things truly are possible, save man’s own voluntary
uplifting. And without this uplifting there is no such thing as Love.”

He still held her hands.

“May I not endeavour to reach this height?” he asked, and his voice
shook a little. “Have patience with me, Diana! You have beauty, wealth,
youth----”

She interrupted him.

“You forget! ‘Mature years’ are in my brain and heart,--I am not really
young.”

“You _are_,” he rejoined--“Younger than you can as yet realise. You see
your own outward appearance, but you have had no time yet to test your
inward emotions----”

“I have none!” she said.

He dropped her hands.

“Not even an angel’s attribute--mercy?”

A faint sigh stirred her bosom where the great “Eye of Rajuna” shone
like a red star.

“Perhaps!----” she said--“I do not know--it may be possible!”

       *       *       *       *       *

To-day in Paris one of the loveliest women in the world holds
undisputed sway as a reigning beauty. The “old,” now the “young” Diana
is the envy of her sex and the despair of men. Years pass over her and
leave no change in her fair face or radiant eyes,--a creature of light
and magnetic force, she lives for the most part the life of a student
and recluse, and any entertaining of society in her house is rare,
though the men of learning and science who were friends of Professor
Chauvet are always welcomed by their adorable hostess, who to them
has become a centre of something like worship. So far as she herself
is concerned, she is untouched by either admiration or flattery. Each
day finds her further removed from the temporary joys and sorrows of
humanity, and more enwrapt in a strange world of unknown experience
to which she seems to belong. She is happy, because she has forgotten
all that might have made her otherwise. She feels neither love nor
hate: and Féodor Dimitrius, now alone in the world, his mother having
passed away suddenly in her sleep, wanders near her, watchfully, but
more or less aimlessly, knowing that his beautiful “experiment” has
out-mastered him, and that in the mysterious force wherewith his
science has endowed her, she has gone beyond his power. His “claim”
upon her lessens day by day, rendering him helpless to contend with
what he imagined he had himself created. The Marchese Farnese, catching
a passing glimpse of her in Paris, became so filled with amazement
that he spread all sorts of rumours respecting her real “age” and the
“magic art” of Dimitrius, none of which were believed, of course, but
which added to the mystery surrounding her--though she herself never
condescended to notice them. To this day she holds herself apart and
invisible to all save those whom she personally chooses to receive. No
man can boast of any favour at her hands,--not even Dimitrius. And,--as
was said at the beginning of this veracious narrative--there is no end
for Diana May. She lives as the light lives,--fair and emotionless,--as
all may live who master the secret of living,--a secret which, though
now apparently impregnable, shall yield itself to those, who, before
very long, will grasp the Flaming Sword and “take and eat of the fruit
of the Tree of Life.” The Sword turns every way--but the blossom is
behind the blade. And in this Great Effort neither the love of man nor
the love of woman have any part, nor any propagation of an imperfect
race,--for those who would reach the goal must relinquish all save the
realisation of that “new heaven and new earth” of splendid and lasting
youth and vitality when “old things are passed away.”


THE END




Transcriber's Notes


A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Cover image is in the public domain.